


constellations of me and you

by cuimhl



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 01:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8690698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuimhl/pseuds/cuimhl
Summary: He can’t look away from Viktor, even when he turns and catches him staring. Truth be told, he can never look away from Viktor. Not even in the beginning; surely, not in any dimension or attic of spacetime, could Katsuki Yuuri have ever looked away from Viktor Nikiforov. And when Viktor looks back at him, smiling, it’s all that matters to him.





	

 

 

A month before the preliminaries in September, it’s warm in Kyushu. Summer is sticky, slow, and August fleshes out into the celadon imprint of trees: branches swelling with leaves like full-bellied flames, striking emerald conflagration. It burns them all up from the inside out, congeals into gold and grease underneath cheap stall lighting, and leaves the residue of burgeoning longing cleaved in half and left to dry under Yuuri’s skin.

He grasps for it, hooks his nails into his arm and tugs, but something strange and hot is flaring between the arch of his ribs. Daring him to touch, but too far to reach. An impasse, mind over body; Yuuri takes routine in the length of his stride and walks with it.

Every day is like this - morning jog, a light breakfast, and then training. Nearly all sixteen of his waking hours are with Viktor in his close vicinity, or at least the spark and flash of silver hair in his periphery. He’s constant, on his mind, by his side, too close for comfort. It makes Yuuri realise, slowly, how long it’s been.

Four months. With his idol always at his side, a two-for-one package deal. Honestly, he’s still not sure if he believes it.

It’s also made him realise that here are two Viktors: the one who teaches him to skate, and the one who - well. The other one.

Sure, Yuuri knows how to skate. One of the top figure skaters, certified by the JSF. But there’s a reason why he thinks of Viktor as a teacher as well as a coach. He’s never known skating quite like this - Viktor reminds him constantly to love.

Not through his words, but the way he skates: like his blades starve for a taste of the ice beneath them, not a one-way relationship of only him carving tracks from the ice, but a two-way street. Giving, taking, balance.

He looks at the ice like he’s studying a map, learning the track of visible thought between two chasmic, lightless eyes, always searching and sifting through the crumbs of something beautiful. Like Yuuri looks at Viktor.

“Yuuri,” he reprimands gently. His touch is steady and his hands firm, but his eyes are always smiling. Smiling, smiling; sunshine blossoming unwatered in the shadows of an infertile greenhouse starved of oxygen. A miracle. Yuuri’s miracle.

He’s been struggling so much with the quadruple salchow, and this close to the preliminaries, Yuuri can’t help but worry. Viktor reminds him not to - guiding his arms and legs into position, he repeats the same instructions over and over again, “momentum is key; your three-turn doesn’t have to be fast, but dig your blade a little harder into the ice,” and somehow the repetition is calming.

Turn, inside edge, Yuuri takes off.

 

-

 

The preliminaries: they’re a success, which should not be surprising, only it is. Yuuri is not used to getting what he wants. Dreaming of far-fetched, overly simplistic successes have always resulted in his own failure, a haunting rhythm of self-destruction played over the knuckles of his right hand: so familiar to him that doubt and anxiety are hardly even the most terrifying heads of Cerberus when he has himself to fear.

They return to Hasetsu in the slow, final ringlets of summer, and Viktor has no qualms about criticising his performance.

“You focused too much on the jumps,” he repeats, for maybe the third time. “Your presentation score is the backbone of your program. Don’t let that go.”

“I’ll get a technical score to match,” Yuuri swears by it. He doesn’t know where the confidence comes from, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth, he knows them to be true.

 

-

 

It’s mid-September, and the cacophony of cicadas fills the air. They’re all drowning, dizzying evening heat unfurling languidly, tentative lakeside breeze less cold than warm and thick as molasses as they plough slowly through.

“I was thinking about that intermission after the first half for your free program,” Viktor begins conversationally, walking a few steps ahead and swinging his arms. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and boardshorts, surreal and unbelievably familiar in the drowsy glow of dusk. Upon the crown of his head alights a wreath of gold and not silver, and sunset softens the angles of his cheekbone and jaw so that when he smiles, the sharp clarity of his expression frays and tars.

“Yeah,” Yuuri murmurs back, half-asleep on his feet. It’s been a long practice, and he’s dragging his steps, eyes blinking drowsily to keep the silhouette of Viktor in focus as he follows behind.

He likes summer, the hum of insects, sharp tang of tree sap not stained by the damp mould of rain and melted snow in winter, but instead muted by thick, woolly humidity. He likes the way the flowers bloom in spring, heralding its successor in seasonal change; he likes the way that his skin tingles with warmth blossoming under his fingertips, and how the world lights up in gold and green.

He especially likes the way that Viktor looks, against the backdrop of quiet little Hasetsu. It’s paused in the endearing coziness of a parent half-unfurling a bamboo mattress, the shape of a mother’s back outlined by the few tall buildings they have, or the broad shoulders of a father bending over, curving over two small slopes in the distance.

Viktor, with his silver hair and blue eyes, looks exotic. Wondrous. His lithe build lends him an agile grace, a work of art in motion. His lips part, Yuuri’s gaze locks onto the movement; “what are your thoughts about putting the Ina Bauer before your spread eagle?”

“I don’t mind,” Yuuri replies, honestly. Viktor has been working so hard to choreograph his program, constantly tweaking details here and there that he himself didn’t even realise were important. It’s touching, he thinks, and also stressful. He wants to perform the best he possibly can so as not to sully his coach’s name but also, more importantly, to make Viktor proud.

Viktor hums thoughtfully. “No, perhaps not,” he muses. “It might look out of place, bringing your right foot forwards in such a short space of time.”

He pauses in his step to wait.“Yuuri,” he chastises, when he stumbles over a rock. “You’re so sleepy, you should have told me. We could have cut practice short.”

Yuuri shakes his head adamantly, but allows Viktor to pull him into his side, his cool palm closing over the curve of his shoulder. He’s become more gentle with his touches, following the preliminaries. Before that, Yuuri was constantly bombarded with ebullient affection that seemed, at times, simply theatrical and analytical in their motivations. He doesn’t feel that way anymore.

In any case, it’s warmer like this. It might have been uncomfortable at this point during summer on any other occasion, but right now it feels nice instead. Yuuri feels protected, loved, like he actually means something. Viktor never ceases to make him feel important, and that’s the best part - the insecurity that used to tear him apart before even the slavering jaws of defeat has been pushed away. Not permanently, but it’s not like Yuuri could possibly delude himself into thinking it can end just like this.

No, he’s not confident by any means, but things have changed subtly over time. Now he knows that if he messes up, Viktor will be there to catch him. What used to be a burden he suffered under on his own is now something he can share, without feeling ashamed or guilty.

“We’re so close to the Cup of China,” he says. Viktor doesn’t like it when he brings up deadlines - he claims it takes away the magic of skating purely for itself. It’s fun to tease him about it, when Yuuri has the courage to.

They lapse into a comfortable silence. It was confusing initially, this strange dichotomy that exists within Viktor Nikiforov. At once a social butterfly and a quiet, steady perfectionist, sometimes Yuuri hesitates before reaching out for his touch, overwhelmed by the sense that they exist on entirely different planes of existence brushing up against each other for this extended lease of time, and yet also that they’re one and the same. Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and have returned to each other, merging seamlessly into one.

Sometimes, he lets himself hope for too much. But is it too much, or not enough? Yuuri has never been good with people to begin with, yet he’s struck by this human enigma now at a critical juncture in his career and life. To hold, or to let go; at times it seems the temptation is too great.

 

-

 

They’ve fallen into the habit of taking a hot soak in the onsen after each practice. Of course, the original justification was that it is enormously helpful for reducing muscle tension, but a great deal of pleasure is involved in actuality.

Viktor loves the hot springs. He does not seem to have a reason, and just does. Yuuri doesn’t pilfer the candor of his desires from his mouth, doesn’t try to force an explanation where there is no need for one, but it still amuses him to witness the childish delight that smooths out his coach’s features when they return to Yu-topia Akatsuki in the evenings.

In summer, it’s still bright outside by the time they’ve returned to Yuuri’s place and stripped down. Viktor doesn’t bring up anything more about the intermission - or anything else to do with the program, really - and they sit together in the hot water, steeping in quiet reflection. The silence is only broken by distant splashes, the soft lap of water over slicked stone, and sometimes the hollow echo of footsteps on granite.

It used to surprise Yuuri; from time to time, it still does. Viktor is exuberant, lively, charming and magnetic and charismatic in ways that Yuuri cannot even dream of being. The forward way he acted in their first meeting and consecutive ones afterward led Yuuri to believe that was how their relationship would be -  a gravitational push-and-pull characterised by Yuuri forever giving, and Viktor forever taking, energy and personal space.

But it’s really not like that. In the evenings, Viktor is especially pensive. Noticeably more so ever since the preliminaries. His expression is closed, something which unsettles Yuuri, but it’s not unwelcome. All it feels like is just two souls breathing in a lull in the world’s frenetic pace of unbroken time, a stillness in movement that Yuuri needs and which, apparently, Viktor does too.

He wonders if the change is recent - is Viktor respecting his autonomy more consciously, after his blatant disobedience of coach’s instructions during his free skate? Does he trust his judgement a little more? Or, perhaps, is it just another step in the development of their acquaintanceship, still two uneven edges sanding away at each other until they can coexist in perfect harmony?

It’s a theory that Yuuri is still working on, the way they fit together. He has to wonder constantly if this is a dream. If he believed in soulmates, this is what he’d think of: two bodies, two minds, sharing the peace.

Later, as they wrap themselves up in terrycloth bathrobes and leave wet footprints behind on the warm stone to dry, Yuuri is the first to speak.

“We’ve only talked about what I want to eat, if I win the Grand Prix Final,” he begins a little uncertainly. This is something they do often - discussing the future like present restrictions are nonexistent. Yuuri used to hate it, used to wonder if it was some elaborate torture or motivation tactic to encourage him to achieve the successes they discussed. He’s still afraid of that uncertainty, but Viktor teaches him to dream. To live in the present. To let go, just a little, just enough.

Viktor turns, brushing his bangs from his face and smoothing it thoughtfully. “I’d just like to eat what you like to,” he replies, looking distant. “Katsudon sounds fine to me.”

“Are you sure?” Yuuri presses. “My mother cooks well, as you’d expect when we own a resort, and I can do a bit too. Isn’t there anything you want for yourself?”

He’s sensitive, which has sometimes made him a pushover and a doormat. Viktor, however, is vastly more generous and kind than he is, which heightens his instinct for unnecessary mothering. It’s never been treated as unwelcome in their interactions, at least not since Yuuri worked up the courage to speak his mind.

“No,” Viktor shakes his head with a smile. It’s not a malicious one, but his teeth shine and Yuuri thinks of predators, of amber eyes and scraggly undergrowth, and he suppresses a shiver. Viktor hides his truths and secrets both in the cavern of his mouth, secreted under his tongue and hidden from sight. “I’ll explain my reasons to you, maybe, someday.”

He does this a lot: saying vague things and making promises here and there like he’s trying to tighten his connection to this world, consolidating his position in existence. Viktor acts wise and impenetrable more often than not, but it’s not obnoxious. Strangely enough, everything fits neatly with Viktor. No excesses, no fraying ends; Yuuri wants to push and push some more, just to see where the line between composure and human imperfection lies within this man.

It all makes Yuuri feel like an undercover detective on a mission to discredit purity and all things beautiful in the world. Meaningless and meaningful touch, emblazoned against his skin; Viktor’s many smiles which paint travesty and tragic martyrdom in the same garden of flowers, crushed and watered with equal abandon. He’s guilty about it, of course, but he’s also never been a romantic like Viktor - he wouldn’t know what it means to love and act freely, with no compunctions about consequence or failure. He’s lived with failure all his life.

 

-

 

Dinner is always a simple fare, with all the right balances of nutrition necessary for muscle growth and good health. They eat by themselves at the table, kotatsu having been swapped out for a small, short, bench-like surface.

Viktor picks at his food, always a telling sign that there’s something on his mind. As he pushes around slices of asparagus with the tips of his chopsticks, Yuuri heaves a sigh and sets his bowl down.

“What is it?”

“What is what?” Viktor looks up, surprised. Yuuri has noticed that he’s often out of touch with his own wants and needs, treating other people’s consideration like it’s news even when he’s been acting hopelessly obvious. Then there are times when he just can’t get a handle on his thoughts, and Yuuri feels like he’s stranded in the cold and dark, too paralysed to plot shaking coordinates in place on the visage of a stranger.

“You have something on your mind,” Yuuri says. He leans over the table, picking up scrambled eggs and tomato, and looking his coach in the eye.

“I don’t,” Viktor protests, bringing a mouthful of food to his mouth. He chews slowly, emphasising the lack of anything wrong with him, eyes wide with exaggerated innocence. There are two possibilities - either whatever he’s thinking about is truly very important to him, or he really hasn’t realised he’s been brooding at all.

Deciding to drop the subject until it resurfaces naturally, Yuuri shrugs. “Alright. But if you do, just talk. I’m here.”

They eat for a few minutes, awkwardly, avoiding each other’s gazes. Viktor makes a strangled sound in his throat, like he’s trying to expel stray consonants caught in his throat like fishbones, but then continues to eat anyway. Finally, he lowers his bowl and clicks his chopsticks carefully over the brim, rice half-finished. Yuuri mirrors him expectantly.

“I was thinking,” he falters, rhythm stilted. The lightbulb overhead swings once in a slow arc, tesselating a new fabric of shadows that glitches once, twice, over the bridge of his nose. It douses his hair with kerosene, flickering to life in a blurred mango halo, and his eyes glint when he lifts them to Yuuri’s. “I’d like to see Tokyo.”

Yuuri tilts his head to the side, “is that it?”

Viktor nods slowly. “Yeah. Just, before we get into the thick of the Grand Prix series. I don’t know, I’ve never really seen it outside of competition arenas, and I’ve heard it’s very beautiful at night.”

“We should,” Yuuri bobs his head quickly. “If we take the shinkansen, it will only take five or so hours. When do you want to go?”

Excitement blossoms in his gaze, and Viktor breaks into a small smile. He’s ridiculously easy to read at times like these, unreserved about the happiness he feels and gives in equal parts. It makes the corner of Yuuri’s lips twitch up into an echoing grin, and then it’s just that - just the two of them smiling at each other, lost in a silent storm of unspoken words.

Yuuri’s never felt like this with anyone else. It’s so easy to trust and give himself away when he’s with Viktor, and they have a tacit understanding that transcends verbalisation. Even if something gets lost in translation, the particulars were never needed in emotional expression anyway; the smoothness with which their minds meet, merge and move in tandem is magical in a way Yuuri has never believed in before. He kindles the flame of their connection close to his chest, afraid that it will be blown out, but Viktor cups his hands over Yuuri’s and holds it with him.

“Tomorrow,” Viktor decides. Yuuri is unsurprised. The spontaneity of his character is part of what he is so attracted to about this man, after all, a rare and wild touch of liberation that embellishes everything he comes into contact with in an incomparable indent of acquaintanceship.

“Alright,” he agrees. “I’ll book the tickets tonight.”

 

-

 

Viktor is a morning person, and Yuuri is undoubtedly not.

“Yuuri,” he calls, voice muffled by the closed door between them. “Didn’t you say the train was at nine? It’s almost seven now, we should wash up and get ready.”

“Almost seven,” Yuuri echoes, groaning into his pillow and turning over. “It will take half an hour to wash up and half an hour to get there, let me sleep.”

There’s silence, and Yuuri thinks hopefully that Viktor has bowed to his request. He should have known better.

A quiet click resounds through his bedroom and a sliver of light outlines the doorway, watery morning light stumbling quiet and bleary-eyed into his room with a handprint of gold against the architraves. Yuuri doesn’t lock his door anymore, seeing no point in keeping out someone who means no harm and all positive intentions possible. He regrets that trust, now.

With a mumbled word, a soft pad of feet, something round and dark bounds into the room, landing in a furry mess on Yuuri’s bed. It licks a wet stripe over Yuuri’s cheek and he groans again, disgruntled.

“Makkachin,” he mumbles disapprovingly. “Go kick your owner for me, he’s merciless. Just half an hour more!”

“No,” Viktor singsongs from the doorway, and Yuuri can imagine his smug smile. “We might be going to Tokyo, but you still have to go on your morning run! Since we’re leaving earlier than usual, your daily exercise regime has also been shifted to accommodate schedule changes.”

“You’re an ungrateful sod. I booked those tickets with my own money,” Yuuri sits up, eyes squeezed shut as he rubs his palm absently against Makkachin’s pelt.

“Thank you, thank you,” Viktor laughs. “Do you want a thank-you kiss from this ungrateful sod?”

“No,” Yuuri flops back down on his bed, grumbling. “Go away and let me get changed in peace.”

“Okay,” Viktor calls, and Makkachin leaps off of the bed, padding back to the door. “If you don’t get up in five minutes, I’ll eat your breakfast for you after the run!”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Yuuri sits up, frowning playfully, trying to direct his early morning aggression at the source of all his troubles with an appropriate glare. Viktor laughs again, a clear and bright sound, before turning and walking back down the hallway.

Yuuri raises a hand to his lips, smoothing away the involuntary and helpless smile. He loves their banter, loves the scent of shampoo on Makkachin’s fur, but he also unquestionably loves Viktor Nikiforov too.

Simple attraction has gained weight and momentum and it's plummeting down with frightening speed, drawn by a gravity that Yuuri has never known, never touched nor seen nor imagined. It comes without warning: sunshine slanting through a film of dust, pollen caught in his fingertips right before the collision. By the time he realises, it is far too late. It's something making a home in his heart before he even registers it, simultaneously destroying and rebuilding him in the midst of his own confusion, and Yuuri finds he cannot mind it, cannot hate something so intrinsically beautiful when even the outline of footprints over his heart is illuminated by psychedelic colour. It's faint warmth trapped between two palms, smoothed over two decades of grisaille worn into a montage of every reason why he should not open his heart. The light redirects itself, straightens its aim and extracts the penumbra from behind Yuuri's indecision.

Surely, it's the easiest and most naturally he’s ever fallen for another person, if not the very first time. Even the impossibility of their having a romantic relationship cannot deter the happiness that this lends him, and Yuuri should be afraid - but he’s not. Anything. He will take anything if it’s with Viktor.

 

-

 

The crisp morning air is the only thing refreshing about summer, and Yuuri cherishes it dearly, fingers uncurled to catch brumous seven o’clock fog in his fingertips and mouth parted to chase the cold air. Viktor rides ahead on his bicycle as he always does, the clatter of his chain blurring together evenly as he pauses in his pedalling to smile back at Yuuri.

 _Alright_ , his heart mumbles shyly. He’s coming to terms with the one-sided attraction he can’t seem to escape.

They call a good morning to the elderly man standing by the rails at the water’s edge, fishing, and run past familiar sights. There’s the park that Yuuri used to play at with his friends, the ancient trunk of a towering oak marked with names of crushes and quiet little wishes sharply engraved in infinity.

“You know, I’ve never understood why people do that,” Viktor says suddenly, scraping a foot beside his pedal to stop and wait for Yuuri, before kicking off at a leisurely pace again.

“Do what?” Yuuri exhales, looking around curiously.

“Writing crushes and wishes on tree trunks, I mean,” Viktor clarifies. “I don’t really understand the point of it? It’s romantic and all, but fairly useless. If you like someone, confessing to a tree doesn’t really help.”

“Confessing face-to-face is not for the weak of heart and mind,” Yuuri replies, bitterness mostly feigned in the spirit of teasing back and forth, a balance that he’s measured wordlessly with Viktor in the dark space between minds, unlit by conscious exploration, sewing the interminable sequence of time against the skeleton of their acquaintanceship - increments of hours distorted to fit their musculature. “You’re so beautiful, I can’t really imagine you ever being in much danger of rejection.”

“Confessing face-to-face is daunting for anyone,” Viktor disagrees, but he’s smiling too. They’re hardly ever serious in disagreements, which is another first for Yuuri, who’s always been considered too uptight and easily agitated for his own good. Somehow, comfortable discussion comes so easily, folded away in the creases of their dynamic so subtly and unobtrusively that he’s barely realised it until now.

Yuuri looks at him questioningly, “have you ever confessed to someone to their face?”

Viktor shrugs first, his smile not quite reaching his eyes anymore, before replying “I have.”

“And?”

“I was rejected,” he says simply.

“Really?” Yuuri stares at his side profile in surprise, curiousity aroused to the point of wanting to pry just a little more. He holds his tongue, though, not wanting to intrude on Viktor’s privacy, but he’s still hoping that there will be a little more to the story.

However, Viktor doesn’t give him that satisfaction, rising up in his seat to pedal hard for a few paces before breezing along at his new speed. “Hurry up if you still want that breakfast,” he calls, and Yuuri drops his jaw in mock anger.

“That’s playing dirty,” he calls back, but he runs faster anyway. Oh well, it will justify his larger appetite later.

 

-

 

The train station is filled with people, instantly putting Yuuri on edge. He and Viktor are both dressed in hoodies and sunglasses, with a baseball cap to hide Viktor’s conspicuous head of silver hair. It makes him a little giddy knowing that many of the people milling around would react explosively to the knowledge of their presence, strangely excited by the feeling of being undercover with high stakes, but that is easily countered by his distaste for large crowds. Despite Viktor’s open exterior, he seems to be uneasy as well.

“Don’t you like large congregations of people, Viktor?” Yuuri questions quietly as they step onto the escalator, tugging on his backpack straps with tickets in hand.

“Not really,” Viktor answers. “I like people, sure, and I like admirers well enough, but once there’s too many people I just - feel a bit caged in, you know?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri says back. “Yeah, I know.”

The shinkansen platform is a lot more deserted at this hour, having avoided much of the peak hour rush prior to nine AM.

“Which is better, morning trains or afternoon trains?” Viktor’s thoughts are sudden, and he voices them with little context.

“I like night trains best, actually,” Yuuri muses, not missing a beat, scrutinising the two tickets in the palm of his hand. “I like it when we drive past brightly-lit cities and then the quiet, dark countryside, knowing that I’ll be sleeping under a sky of the same stars with a constantly shifting view.”

Viktor hums, contemplative. “Alright, I see that,” he says.

“Which do you prefer?” Yuuri asks.

“Night trains,” he says. He doesn’t elaborate, and Yuuri doesn’t ask him to.

Moments like these are when the silence between them stretches taut on the continuum of time, tense and largely unwelcome. Viktor is open about his happiness, but he is very private about his sadness, and even more so with his secrets. Yuuri doesn’t know how to ask - he’s never known how to ask, how to handle a delicate social situation and his incapability frustrates him. So he keeps quiet, and their minds wander off into their own separate landscapes.

This is thankfully interrupted by the arrival of the train, sliding smoothly into the platform. Instantly, light breaks over Viktor’s face and he stares at it in barely disguised awe and wonder, even though his eyes are obscured by the sunglasses.

“It’s glorious,” he gasps, and Yuuri feels a rush of patriotism tingle inside him.

“It is pretty cool,” he agrees. “Travelling feels so much lighter and more efficient, and you can rarely feel bumps in the tracks.”

“But this,” Viktor gestures widely at the body of the shinkansen train. “Smooth, unmarked, the picture of pristine machinery. It’s the," he clicks his fingers, looking for a word. Yuuri can tell that he's encumbered by the language barrier, but he's already wildly impressive by any standards.

"The height? The summit?" Viktor worries away at his lip briefly, resuming "the epitome of well-oiled mechanisms that humanity struggles vainly to achieve, yet it’s so lonely. No one can reach its level, and it’s always faster than its companions.”

Yuuri looks at him, surprised, something unnameable curling and unfolding languidly against his ribcage. “Sure,” he says. “Yeah, it’s beautiful.”

A sudden breeze whips through the air and Viktor’s sunglasses slip, his cap flies off, and his fringe tosses in the wind. He pulls the frames off of the bridge of his nose, gaze still fixed on the train, but raw magnetism draws Yuuri’s gaze to him instead. There’s colour high in his cheeks, and his lips are chapped in the dry stillness of the September morning. He looks absorbed, delighted, entirely unaware of his own enchantment. Yuuri cuts a glance at the train, hair blowing into his face -

But he can’t look away from Viktor, even when he turns and catches him staring. Truth be told, he can never look away from Viktor.

Not even in the beginning, when the firsthand and secondhand embarrassment was too great. Surely, not in any dimension or attic of spacetime, could Katsuki Yuuri have ever looked away from Viktor Nikiforov. It’s just not in the universe’s elaborate design.

And when Viktor looks back at him, smiling, that’s all that matters to him.

 

-

 

Tokyo is bustling, bright, busy. They make it there by the early afternoon, and spend the daylight hours wandering around the city.

“ _Vkusno_ ,” Viktor emphasises with a mouthful of takoyaki from a nearby street food stall, snapping a quick picture of the container. Yuuri smiles, and snaps a picture of him instead.

“Incredible,” he exclaims when they come close enough to see the Tokyo Tower looming up in its crimson majesty.

“You should see it at night,” Yuuri replies. “They light it up in gold.”

They see the Skytree, the Studio Ghibli museum; they have a lunch of just street food and take endless photos - of this, of that, of each other. Yuuri smiles so hard his face hurts. Viktor is like an overgrown child in a boundless playground, astonished at every little thing with eyes full of wonder, and he’s so endearingly fond of Japan.

“You must show me around Russia,” Yuuri suggests, “if - when we attend the Rostelecom Cup.”

“It’s a deal,” Viktor promises.

At night, they get a container of takeaway ramen and eat it on a set of swings, swaying back and forth as they share the extra large portion between them. Viktor is adamant that they must find the best ice rink in Tokyo, but Yuuri points out that they should find a hotel first.

They end up finding a quaint ryokan not too far from the centre of the city, and Yuuri offers to pay.

“Oh, no,” Viktor takes over none-too-gently, and books “one room, please.”

Yuuri isn’t sure how much trust he can put into Viktor’s Japanese speaking skills - how anyone could have progressed to the stage he is already at is a wonder, to him, but it’s still very much a second language however one looks at it. As it turns out, he overestimated it. There’s a misunderstanding, maybe several more, but the end result is -

“A double bed?”

Yuuri drops his bag on the carpet, unsure of whether he should feel more surprised, embarrassed, or perhaps upset. Behind him, Viktor enters the room with a cheery whistle and then stops dead in his tracks.

“I - I’ll talk to the receptionist,” he offers, flushing. Yuuri is frozen stock still, and doesn’t register it really until Viktor returns, a few minutes later, looking sheepish.

“There were only two rooms,” he explains, “I think? I’m not sure what the other room was equipped for, but I might have fumbled a bit with the names of bed sizes, so this happened.”

“And the other one?”

“Booked, now. We can look for another inn, if you want?”

Yuuri picks up his bag slowly, runs the strap along his palm and swallows thickly. “No, it’s - it’s fine. I don’t - really, I don’t really mind. Unless you’re uncomfortable?”

To his surprise, Viktor blushes a deep red and shakes his head. “I’m alright, if you are. You can take the first shower.”

“Alright,” Yuuri nods, still a little dazed, pulling out his hastily-packed toiletries and retiring to the bathroom.

It’s not that he minds, he thinks, as he turns the knob for hot water. It comes down in freezing ropes, so he steps back and waits until it heats up reasonably before stepping in. This is every romantic cliché that one can dream of: having to sleep in the same bed as one’s crush, however unfortunate it really is. What’s truly unprecedented is the fact that Viktor is so bothered by the circumstances. It’s entirely at odds with the way he acted in the beginning, what with declaring his new coach status while standing as naked as the day he was born, or lifting Yuuri’s chin with a slender finger, or even constantly offering kisses like their own brand of greetings.

An embarrassed Viktor is fun to watch, to tease. Warmth floods him inside out even as the hot water rushes down the curve of his back, uncoiling the muscles in his shoulderblades. Yuuri isn’t worried that anything will happen. Viktor is nothing if not a gentleman, and unless Yuuri makes the first move, nothing will come of lying together in the same bed. It might get uncomfortably warm, however, which is something to consider.

Later, when they’ve both showered and are wrapped warmly in bathrobes, sitting side by side on the bed, all the previous awkwardness dissipates.

A drowsy Viktor is very tactile, and he hangs onto Yuuri’s shoulders as he looks up ice-skating rinks on his phone.

“Let’s go to sleep,” he mumbles in the dip between Yuuri’s neck and shoulder, and Yuuri shivers.

“Just five more minutes,” he says. “You go to sleep first.”

Viktor is exhausted after the half-day of sightseeing. He might be able to execute a quadruple toe-triple toe combination at the conclusion of his program to a perfect standard, but plodding around unfamiliar streets and gawking at tourist attractions and mundane city life has taken its toll on his stamina.

He lies back obediently, eyes already shut as he maneuvers his head around to find a comfortable position in the pillow, hair splayed in glinting silver over the white case. Not a minute passes before his breaths even out, gentle inhales of dust and fragrant sterility, quiet exhales of exhaustion. The dim lamplight casts its radiance over his cheek and he glows, soft and warm and bright. Yuuri reaches out to touch, fingers hovering over the arch of his cheekbone hesitantly before retracting his hand. With his lashes fanning over his pale skin and the peaceful stillness embracing his figure, Yuuri is sure there has never been and will never be anyone as beautiful as Viktor.

On the ice, Viktor is a storm - all sharply-paced alarm and graceful flair, insuppressible swathe of shadows brought to life under the scrape and twist of his blade and the patterns that he carves with his fingers, or the line of his neck curling backwards to bare his blade-cut jawline to the sky.

Between the pillars of his soul, winter blooms, turns its face to the sunshine of his heart and opens arms to free worship. With his body, he does, dances July into the trace of December with scarce a breath out of place and tangles cinquillo with the downbeat of Debussy’s _Clair de Lune._

Here, sleeping, Viktor is simultaneously a prince and a pauper. Just a normal man, extraordinarily handsome, entrusting his safety to Yuuri. Common, ordinary Yuuri.

Taking a careful breath, Yuuri brushes his fingers against Viktor’s cheek, smoothing the hair from his face. Viktor shifts under the touch, lashes fluttering as he hums absently. Then he smiles, the first bud of a courageous blossom in the midst of a barren wasteland, or that of Yuuri’s soul. He lights him up, from toes to fingertips, from the marrow of his bones to his skin, flaring alight in the lustre of Viktor’s presence alone.

Yuuri sets an alarm on his phone, locks it and then puts it away. Wistfully, he looks over Viktor’s sleeping figure and clicks off the lamp, before sliding under the covers and going to sleep.

 

-

 

They do end up going ice-skating, but the rental blades make their ankles hurt and both of them agree to step off the ice before someone recognises them.

Instead, they spend the day messing around again, purposefully getting lost in the streets of metropolitan Tokyo and laughing at each other as they attempt to find their way back without a map.

It’s all very grounding, to be here with Viktor, doing stupid things. If Yuuri felt like skating with him was a dream, then this should theoretically feel even further out of his reach. However, he’s envisioned sharing the ice with his idol for so long that this, well, this is just an added bonus.

In the late afternoon, they take the shinkansen back home.

About three hours into the train ride, their carriage is entirely empty. They sit together at first, dozing off at intervals, before Viktor moves to sit on the opposite side. Yuuri stares after him, uncomprehending, but Viktor only smiles.

“I want to see your face better,” he explains, and Yuuri blushes.

Afternoon is richly gold, streaming in through the windows like a thousand urns of ambrosia spilling into the carriage and bridging the space between them with an orange light bath. The sun is behind Viktor’s head, so all Yuuri can see is the outline of his head when the sunlight is especially bright, but it casts himself in stark relief and the attention is both unsettling and thrilling. He likes being watched as though he’s someone special, worth watching, and that’s exactly what Viktor gives to him.

Stentorian and persistent, his heart hammers in his ears. It stifles all sound except the harsh catch of his inhale, everything unexpectedly and confusingly subaqueous as he scrambles to right himself. Viktor’s eyes are blue as the sky, cold as cut ice, but they’re so easy to drown in.

In the early evening, they disembark in sleepy little Hasetsu, pick up their skates, and go ice-skating at the ice rink.

After almost two days without practicing, his free skate routine is marginally more rusty than his short program, but all the previous training has not been for nothing - after two repetitions Yuuri feels perfectly comfortable again. Viktor looks a lot more relaxed, and he’s oddly more liberal with his touches - and criticisms.

“I know you’re good at camel spins, but lift your free leg higher,” he says, a touch of teasing to his voice. “And your three turn - don’t forget it matters in presentation. Look at your trace, make sure your free foot is exactly above it.”

“I already do that,” Yuuri complains, even as he hurries to oblige, but Viktor’s bluntness doesn’t sting like usual. They’re a team, more clearly now than ever before, and he revels in that union. Having had his share of berating Viktor’s poor Japanese pronunciation and laughing at his reactions to Japanese culture back in Tokyo, it’s natural that whoever has more expertise and prowess will offer experience to lift the other’s abilities.

Yuuri’s always been aware of that fact, that their relationship is almost perfectly balanced in terms of give and take, but his pride used to obstruct the clarity with which he could objectively observe situations. Now it seems so simple: Viktor is his coach and his friend, and he is here to help him. Whatever successes they reap will be shared glory, mutual effort.

They run through both programs one more time, slowly, and then skate a few rounds of the rink side by side.

“Where in Japan have you been, Yuuri?” Viktor asks, hands clasped behind his back.

“Only Tokyo, really, and whichever city holds the Japanese nationals or preliminaries.”

Viktor is silent, and their blades grate pensively over the ice.

“Where in Russia have you been, Viktor?”

“St Petersburg, Moscow, what you’d expect,” he admits with a rueful smile. “Ekaterinburg, once, but that was just a school expedition to witness the death place of our last Tsar.”

“Speak in Russian,” Yuuri says suddenly. “I haven’t heard you speak Russian very much at all.”

“You’ll hear plenty of it when we go there for the Rostelecom Cup,” Viktor teases.

Yuuri pokes him in side, insistent. “Please?”

Viktor hums, says something unintelligible in his beautiful Russian accent.

“What does that mean?”

Outside the window, the sun sets, suffusing the sky in peach and violet. The fading rays bruise against Yuuri’s cheek, but he doesn’t notice, looking off to the side thoughtfully. Viktor stares at him. He’s silent for a moment, before he replies, “two single beds, please.”

“Viktor!” Yuuri rounds on him, embarrassed and entertained simultaneously as he pushes him playfully.

Viktor grins, gliding back on the ice, before skating for the entrance of the rink. “Last one to get their skates off has to do the dishes,” he says cheerfully.

“You’re so childish,” Yuuri exclaims as he follows, skating furiously fast and stumbling once. Viktor catches him, steady and gentle as he braces his shoulders and pushes him upright again.

Then, he winks. “It’s one of my many charms.”

Yuuri huffs, heaves an exasperated sigh, and skates off. “I’ll beat you, if you’re not careful! You know how much we eat. I won’t take mercy on you, you know.”

“I do,” Viktor hums softly, words barely audible. “That’s what I like about you.”

“Hurry up!”

Shaking his head, Viktor pushes back and skates after him.

 

-

 

Routine is easy for them to fall back into, after a hiatus of only two days. The next morning, Yuuri wakes up, goes on his run with Viktor cycling ahead, and they return to the same rhythm they left behind. But it feels like they’re slightly different people, either more in tune with each other or not.

Yuuri’s terrified by both prospects.

They move past the midway mark of September, and Yuuri’s mother makes an excuse to cook them up a special treat. “It was the mooncake festival in China last week,” she says, ushering them into the main dining hall. She has made a plate stacked full of homemade mooncakes, prettily decorated and glistening under the light, oily and plush.

The thing is, Yuuri knows that’s not really the reason. Their family celebrates as many festivals as they possibly can, but the mid-autumn festival is not one of them usually. By going to these great lengths to treat them, his mother must be feeling bad for not taking a more active role in his Grand Prix preparations. But of course she’s doing enough - she’s always been enough, always been supportive and kind and understanding, and Yuuri’s heart aches with the knowledge that her love is so selfless and infinite.

Tears prick behind Yuuri’s eyes, and he engulfs her with a hug. Viktor looks like he wants to do the same, but he respects her personal space and shifts from foot to foot, looking uneasy with the desire to express his gratitude somehow.

“Come here, you big bear,” he teases, stretching out an arm for him to join. Viktor hesitates for a moment, but then he’s stepping in, wrapping his long arms around the two of them with a smile.

“What’s in them?” Viktor asks curiously when they’ve retired to Yuuri’s room, with a plate of mooncakes in the centre. He doesn’t bother to hide his posters of Viktor anymore, not after the man himself barged in once without asking, convinced that Yuuri was wallowing in self-hatred when in fact he was just trying to keep him from witnessing firsthand the greatest Viktor Nikiforov admirer in his natural habitat: the Viktor Nikiforov shrine.

“I think they’re lotus seed mooncakes,” Yuuri says, picking one up and sniffing it cautiously. “Try it, they’re really nice.”

Viktor takes a careful bite, and wrinkles his nose at first. “Sweet,” he comments, but he eats the rest of it anyway. Then he licks his fingers, eyes wide, and grins. “A little too sweet,” he admits, “but it does taste wonderful.”

“You should tell my mother, she’d love to hear that,” Yuuri smiles back.

 

-

 

Practice doesn’t always go without a hitch, though. Yuuri dreads those days - when his blades just don’t feel sharp enough, or his legs are weak, or there’s some unseen burden wearing down the arch of his spine and he slumps under the weight.

The real core of the issue returns to one point: Yuuri is sensitive. It’s already been previously established, but he’s gentle and self-effacing and also particularly easy to rile up and hurt by anything tainted by a selvage of disparagement.

It doesn’t help, of course, that while Viktor is sunshine incarnate on most days, he is also discouragingly strict and horribly imperceptive. His remarks and commentary doesn’t get much softer to accommodate Yuuri’s bad days, which he can accept - how you feel on the day of the competition cannot afford to affect your performance. It’s not as if you can ask the judges for a second try on another day. Still, this is an attitude he’s trying to solidify, but when he keeps messing up jumps consecutively, it’s inevitable that his pride takes a concussive fall.

“You never mess up your quadruple toe loop,” Viktor says, a crease forming between his brows as he hands Yuuri his towel. “What’s up? Do you want to take a break?”

“No,” Yuuri shakes his head. He’s a little frustrated, but also determined not to let this get him down. “I can do this - the takeoff didn’t feel right, that’s all.”

Viktor relaxes, “obviously. You were too slow on the three-turn, and there wasn’t much momentum to go off of before that, anyway. Your weight was all off.”

Yuuri nods demurely, takes a sip from his water bottle and plunges back into practice.

There are two rinks at the Hasetsu Ice Castle - one which is permanently, and technically illegally, booked out by Yuuri and Viktor, and one on which the public skates. They pull down curtains to obscure the private rink, but Yuuri can still hear distant conversation and a cacophony of scraping, grating sounds. The aspiring skaters in Hasetsu have multiplied by the dozen ever since Yuuri’s viral video and Viktor’s arrival. Not surprising; Katsuki Yuuri is the very image of a modern day Cinderella, drawn to fame like just another moth to a flame in one unpredictable twist of events.

He focuses on it now, and tries to regain his composure before kicking off again. Viktor unpauses the music, and Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, tightens his abdomen and aims for the takeoff to his quadruple toe loop again.

This time, he makes the turn too quickly and his back toe-pick slides in the ice, so he has barely a moment to register the fault before he’s spinning in midair and then landing almost immediately on the ice, painfully jarring his knee as he overturns with dizzying speed.

“What was that?” Viktor pauses the music, but Yuuri shakes his head.

“Go from the beginning, please,” he says. Viktor frowns, but he obliges.

He’s barely twenty seconds into his short program when his concentration slips and so does his blade, causing an awful misstep that he winces at, and so does Viktor.

They start again, and again, but each time Yuuri messes up on something or other.

“Look, Yuuri,” Viktor pinches the bridge of his nose, looking more frustrated than he has in a long time. “Should we take a break? You’re obviously not feeling it, so maybe some time to cool down will do you good.”

Yuuri bristles, wiping perspiration from his brow and pushing his bangs back. “What, do you think I’m angry?” he demands, a little more forcefully than is necessary. “Because I’m not. I’m just making a lot of mistakes, but I’ll be fine. If I can’t get over this, then what will I do if I mess up on the day, right?”

“Right,” Viktor concedes, but it clearly pains him to do so. “From the beginning?”

“From the beginning.”

Being aware of a problem does not make it significantly easier to fix. Yuuri knows that he gets worked up over small things, but he hates being so fallible and hopeless, especially this close to the actual competition. He doesn’t want to make a fool of himself, and this desire is all the stronger after his abject failure at the last season, but he’s infinitely more concerned about humiliating Viktor’s coaching ability by repeating that disaster this year.

It would help, he fumes, if Viktor was more understanding. If he was less of a genius and more of a common man himself, able to understand the struggles of non-deities at a perfectly difficult sport.

As he thinks this, Yuuri drops his leg too soon on the camel spin, makes an unanticipated turn, just about falls into his ina bauer and then skates headlong into Viktor.

They’re both breathing a little heavily, and Yuuri straightens himself with great difficulty as he fights down embarrassment and irritation alike.

“Sorry,” he gasps, reaching for the water bottle on the barrier and knocking it onto the ice instead, “I’m just - off my game. Sorry, I’ll do that again.”

“No,” Viktor says.

“Excuse me?”

“I said no, coach’s orders. You need to take a break.”

His eyes are steely and his voice is firm. Yuuri starts to burn, indignant and offended.

“You don’t need to tell me what to do,” he snaps.

“Hey, take it easy,” Viktor’s hackles are raised as well. “I’m not trying to boss you around. I’m just saying - taking a break and then coming back might do you some good.”

“You still think I’m just angry and frustrated,” Yuuri says quietly, flushing. Viktor is silent.

They face each other off, surrounded by a field of glacial white, tense. Yuuri thinks that it looks a lot like two planets colliding, two entirely different worlds rending each other apart. He wonders how he could have been so stupid to think they were in any way the same - their differences are insurmountable. They’ve been different from birth. They’re still different, hopelessly so, even now.

Viktor opens his mouth, shuts it, and then opens it again. The look in his eyes is as cold as the ice, and it frightens Yuuri. “I think you’re being immature,” he says lowly, carefully.

It’s the worst possible thing he could have said, and even through the haze of his anger, Yuuri figures he might have done it deliberately. Rile him up, go the full nine yards, or something. Still, he’s not thinking straight, so the motives don’t matter to him - he’s just angry and hurt, filled to overflowing with self-loathing and desperate to hurl some of that blame onto someone else. Yuuri clenches his fist, feeling the fabric of his gloves tighten over his knuckles.

“I think you need to leave,” he answers, slowly, enunciating every syllable. “You don’t understand me at all. You have no right to make baseless judgements like that.”

Viktor arches a perfect eyebrow and folds his arms, unmoving. “You might be twenty-three,” he says curtly, “but that competitive streak and the high regard in which you hold your own pride makes you hardly the picture of a sensible adult.”

“Competitive streak? Pride?” Yuuri laughs mirthlessly, digging his blades into the ice. He’s so, so furious, impatience and indignation bringing tears to his eyes which only frustrates him more. The worst part about this is that Viktor is probably right; Yuuri is emotionally weak as a sapling, and this is a direct attack.

The barbs catch on his skin on their way out, and he bleeds. Viktor knows where to aim now, knows which fabricated bastion of defence is weakest - the funniest thing is that he’s weak all over. If it’s taken this long for him to besiege the cardboard tower, then the joke is on him. Yuuri has been a soul indivisible and inextricable from softness and failure from the very beginning, a mirage built from others’ expectations teetering on an illusory pedestal, always waiting for that fatal push to send him toppling off the edge.

Is this the fatal fall? Yuuri isn’t sure. All he knows - all he _needs_ to know - is that he’s been attacked and insulted by someone who clearly doesn’t know him well enough. Someone he trusted.

“Not everyone has been perfect from birth,” he says sharply, consonants bitten out between the gritted teeth of a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Not everyone has been able to coast along on raw talent and, how convenient, an extraordinary hard-working streak and incredible creativity. You have it all - looks, an enviable gift, a charismatic personality. Who could not love you, right? Who could withhold from you your rightful glory, let alone fate itself?”

Viktor’s expression is unfathomable, but his lips have thinned into a taut line. Yuuri derives a wicked and morbid delight from his reaction, thrilled to have this power. He just wants to push, push, _push_ until there’s no more perfection to hold up in a pitiful facade and all of that nobility is stripped from his flesh.

Yuuri is not a good person. He knows this. There’s a light and dark between any two individuals, and he’s been the night to Viktor’s day from the very beginning. Whichever subconscious contrivance it was to construct half-hearted purity from his festering soul has long failed, crashed and burned, and the aphotic space in which dwells the capricious monster of his own making is pulsing. It smells blood. It hungers to feed on the proviso that Yuuri’s dignity is first appeased; systematic implosion only waits for the first flame to ignite his fuse and it’s lit now, it’s dancing along the rope to reach his heart.

It was downright foolish to believe that equality could truly exist between two people as different as they are; Yuuri’s been so, so stupid. He hates himself.

“Sorry, but you’re a minority, Viktor Nikiforov. You just - you barge into other people’s lives with no regard for their personal space, their own planned-out dreams and goals.” His throat is thick with reproach, with immeasurable disappointment and injury. A traitorous tear slips and glides over his cheek, but Yuuri brushes it angrily aside.

This is not the unbridled censure and castigation that he sought to set free, but it’s in the wild now - Yuuri’s mouth is disconnected from his mind, each word an embittered arrow sent flying an unplanned trajectory not through any contemplation of his own, but that same insecurity that lives to tear down each tower taller than itself.

“You seem so privileged, but not everyone is perfect like you, Viktor.” Yuuri leans back on his blade, swallows a sob. He’s so weak when it comes to arguing, always the first to cry. He’s gotten so much teasing and isolation because of this, and now it’s acting up again. What will Viktor think of him? He truly is immature, hopeless.

“Not everyone is like you. You don’t get it! It’s hard, to be - to be practising every day just for a sliver of success when there are - well.” He shuts his eyes, blinks away his tears furiously. “Child prodigies and geniuses like you, who dominate the scene. I’m trying so hard. You’ve never struggled in quite the same way, you have no idea how hard it is for me. Just -”

He pauses, grimacing. “Please leave, please leave. You don’t get it. You never will. Please just leave me alone.”

At first, he thinks that Viktor will argue. His pulse stutters once and then soars, a haze of static and noise making him sway in dizziness. But Viktor doesn’t. He just turns on his blade, and glides towards the entrance of the rink, steps off.

Yuuri watches him pack his guards, his jacket, zip up his skating bag. Then he leaves, without saying a word.

It’s the first time they’ve ever seriously argued over something. It’s also the first time that Yuuri realises - Viktor is also imperfect, is also flawed.

And it’s the first time he lets him go, watching him retreat silently. His chest heaves with each breath and he stops himself from clutching it, from clawing at the source of that phantom ache that grips his lungs and swells, ugly and dark between the wings of his ribs.

He’s never hated himself more.

 

-

 

After Viktor leaves, the ice feels so lonely.

Yuuri makes a few laps of the rink, cools down, drinks some water.

 _“Teach me all of the jumps you know,”_ he remembers.

Costive and halting, he picks up speed and focuses on his feet, thinking of Viktor whilst trying not to think of him at the same time. It’s a left outside three turn, toe pick in the ice -

Yuuri flies on broken wings.

He fumbles his landing on the quadruple flip, but it’s surprising to him that he even got the elevation for it. Tracing Viktor’s steps into the ice doesn’t make them his own; without the original looking back at him, glowing with pride, Yuuri doesn’t know what he’s doing this for.

Perhaps, if Viktor had not come to Hasetsu, Yuuri would not be skating now at all.

He thinks about it sometimes - how everyone thought he was in a slump, how he proved them wrong with almost a carbon copy of Viktor’s _Stay Close To Me_ and a side serving of his own flavoured panache. It’s nonetheless an incontestable fact that he did not know what to make of the ice after his dismal placing in the Grand Prix. Did he love it, or did he not? He couldn’t be sure whether it was the ice or himself more at blame; maybe even both, equally.

The grand entry of Viktor Nikiforov was oddly-timed, oddly perfect. He forced himself into Yuuri’s life, disregarded the frailty of the slice of light outlining the door of opportunity just slightly ajar, and threw him back into it. Now -

Now, Yuuri is just as lost as he was before he was saved.

He crouches down and folds in on himself, crying. It’s too bright on the ice, always well-lit and glittering with the light of midday, and he just wishes for the safety of night’s embrace - to not be scrutinised like this, shoulders heaving with ugly sobs and knees weak with exhaustion.

Viktor walking away is one thing; Yuuri pushing him away is another. He’s not idiotic enough to believe this is one-sided, but that doesn’t mean he has to forgive himself for the part he played in the argument.

This is the kind of trust he didn’t know he could have, didn’t realise he would miss. It’s sweat-slicked shoulders and blinding smiles, one man trying to be as cold as a blade’s edge, as hollow as a gun trigger, as efficient as a machine. It’s heartbreak and it’s also not - how do you love someone who is the same as you, who is as different from you as two people can be? Letting go is like tearing himself from himself; two souls reaching over to say hello suddenly stopped, severed by the intransigent passage of time.

The guilt and grief builds up in the column of his throat and Yuuri chokes, grasps his neck and breathes in and out and asphyxiates slowly. The kind of suffocating silence and overwhelming sound thick enough to mire someone neck deep and then to drown them, until only a handful of bubbles are left to show for vestiges of existence. This is what it looks like to lose that connection. To have trusted, to have ruined that trust with his own two hands now bruised and battered with the struggle of separating things that shouldn’t be separated.

He doesn’t realise he’s hyperventilating until Yuuko comes around the side of the rink, pulling at the curtains to check on them, before rushing onto the ice.

“Yuuri,” she says, voice distorted by the distance. “Yuuri, slow down. Slow breaths, hold on - I’m coming, I’m coming, breathe for me -”

 

-

 

“Where’s Viktor?”

Yuuri comes to in his own bed, sweaty and hot under a pile of thick blankets which he kicks at weakly. Beside him is Yuuko, her auburn hair flaring under the afternoon sunshine, and Minako, brow furrowed.

“Yuuri, are you alright?” she asks, brushing aside his question. Minako’s fingers are long and cold as they rest on his forehead, and she pushes his hair back gently.

Yuuri nods, frowning, “I’m fine. I’m fine, why am I here? I need - I need to practice. Where’s Viktor?”

Across the bed, Yuuko and Minako exchange worried glances. Yuuri wishes they wouldn’t do that - he’s fine, first of all, and second of all, he can see what they’re doing perfectly clearly. It’s rude.

“I’m fine,” he repeats irritably. “I just need to go. Do you know where I can find Viktor?”

He remembers their disagreement, remembers Viktor leaving in silence. Yuuri is overcome by the desperate need to make amends, to apologise. At this point, he doesn’t care with whom the blame lies; impatience scalds his insides, a cage of self-blame and fear falling over his shoulders and hipbones as he tries to move. He’s burning alive with the need for things to be okay.

“I think - he might be looking for you at the ice rink,” Minako says reluctantly. “Last I saw him was at the bar, looking incredibly upset. Did you have a fight?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri affirms vaguely, pushing the blankets aside and getting up. “I’m going to go, then. Don’t worry about me.”

“How can we not?” Yuuko says softly, but Yuuri ignores it. He’s ashamed of himself for making those closest to him always worry, but he’s also frustrated by his own dependence.

Smiling apologetically over his shoulder, he pulls his socks up and steps into his trainers, waves quickly and runs out of the house.

The path to the ice rink is disarmingly quiet, a thousand birds stilled mid-song to watch his slow crawl towards his destination. On his right, the water slips over the pier foundations and swills, taps on wood repetitively, drawing forth an entire host of unsettled nerves. He’s afraid of what he’ll find. Is there forgiveness yet to give? What is he going to say, if he sees Viktor?

Yuuri runs into the Ice Castle, pulls aside the curtains of the private rink. There he is: figure illuminated by the reflection of the ice turning his skin white as chalk, faintest apple blossoms of exertion warm on his cheeks. He turns round and round, staring at the ground, before bending his knees and doing a series of back crossovers and -

Hurriedly, Yuuri drops the curtain back in place before Viktor sees him. His heart thuds painfully, pestle and mortar ground against muscle, the ash swelling in clouds and billowing against his bones. It pricks his ribcage, the slightest infiltrating doubt - what if he’s really done it, and Viktor will never look at him again? What if he’s really ruined it all?

Logic reminds him that’s not possible. Viktor isn’t so close-minded and weak to push him away over a single fight. But his own frailty of emotional and mental stability speaks otherwise; the shame is corrosive. It eats at him, delighting in the unequivocal imbalance that their relationship has fallen into, some half-mauled creature leaning sideways on its curving spine. Dislocated vertebra. Yuuri doesn’t know how to fix, only how to destroy, so he thinks - maybe he shouldn’t be here.

Before he can talk himself out of it, he turns right around and runs away.

 

-

 

Yuuri tries to write out the sequence of his two programs, but everything reminds him of Viktor and of his own wrongdoing. Bitter and caustic is his great shame. He is his own worst enemy, the monster under his bed.

At dinnertime, Viktor doesn’t try to look for him. They eat separately - whether or not Viktor eats, Yuuri can’t even be sure, but when he goes to put his plates away, he sees another set of sullied dishes in the sink and he is relieved.

In bed, though, Yuuri tosses and turns and he can’t get to sleep. He runs the horror of the day’s events through his mind like an episode, some painful camera roll, and everything is magnified. Every time he closes his eyes, Yuuri is wondering - where is Viktor? How is he? Will he forgive him?

At three AM, just as Yuuri is dozing off, someone bursts into his room. Yuuri jerks awake, sitting upright with his heart in his mouth. _A thief? An axe-murderer?_

It’s Viktor, and Yuuri is too much in shock to register anything. “It’s Makkachin,” Viktor whispers, breathing harshly. “He’s - he’s not breathing, I don’t know, I don’t know what to do - Yuuri, help -”

“Okay,” Yuuri says, and sets his jaw. Viktor looks so uncharacteristically terrified, something beyond concern and simple love refracting the light in his eyes into shards, the broken glass of his composure strewn in the haphazard pattern of his foosteps like on a battlefield. Behind him, the hallway light flickers on, and he is outlined in stark and brilliant gold.

“I’ll call the vet. Don’t touch him, just - actually, make sure his airways are clear, have him lie on his side.”

Viktor nods, eyes wide. And - Yuuri hates himself for this, but he does it anyway - smooths the hair from Viktor’s face and promises, “he’ll be okay. I’m sure of it.”

After Viktor leaves the room, Yuuri dials the vet’s number and is comforted by the same man who used to check up on his own poodle, Vicchan. “Please, be fast,” he whispers into the receiver, afraid that he’s going to cry again as his voice catches on a sob. “Please.”

“I’ll be there,” the man promises, and hangs up.

Not ten minutes later, there is a knock at the door. Yuuri opens it, ushers the man in quickly, and he sees to the prone figure of Makkachin lying down in the main lounge. With reassuring efficiency, he runs his fingers along his pelt and presses a few spots, pulls open his jaw and feels around his throat.

Viktor watches everything like a statue, stone-cold and silent. He’s untouchable and unreachable, so Yuuri doesn’t look at him again, only watches the vet and the dog in anxious anticipation.

 _Not again_ , he thinks. He can’t bear to see this again, the death of a creature so immeasurably precious to their entire family. Perhaps he should have studied veterinarian studies in college, he thinks to himself almost humorously. Their family has some profound relationships with animals.

As the minutes drag by with each tick of the clock, the vet stands up, straightens his shirt, and smiles weakly. Yuuri holds his breath.

“He’ll be alright,” the vet says.

“Really?” Viktor steps forward at last. Yuuri is frozen in shock and disbelieving gladness, unable to move.

“It might be something he ate. Alternatively, he might have gone through indigestion or even swallowed a large object that blocked his airways temporarily. I’ll have to ask you to do some close surveillance for me over the next few days, but I’m almost certain that he’s fine.”

Yuuri goes weak at the knees, and Viktor catches him. They’re both choked for words.

“Thank you,” he says hoarsely. “Thank you so, so much.”

Yuuri doesn’t know which of them says it - it could even be both, at the same time. Their relief is tangible, and the vet smiles. “He’s well looked-after,” he comments. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

In silent agreement, they both lower themselves onto the carpet to sit a vigil over Makkachin after seeing out the vet. It feels right, respectful, necessary to spoil him with attention when there has been a clear lapse in executed responsibility of their duties somewhere earlier along the timeline.

Sometime later, with dawn breaking blue and dim over the horizon, the orange lounge lights sway a little and Yuuri’s eyes drift closed against his will.

He’s already asleep by the time Viktor tugs him down onto the ground and lays his jacket over him. Like so many of their interactions, this is a silent mend in their rift - vulnerabilities and fondness laid out bare under the insomniac, cotton wool hours before morning, secrets scattered in the dusty attic of their shared heart room. They’ve never really needed words for much at all, and sometimes talking only hurts them more.

So this - quiet acceptance, comradeship - is enough. Yuuri shifts in his sleep, and Viktor smiles over him. It’s alright like this.

 

-

 

When Yuuri wakes up a little while after noon, it’s with horror and humiliation. He’s not necessarily ashamed of not being a morning person, but to be out all the way until past noon - although there was that time, after the Onsen on Ice, when he slept until eight in the PM - and to have fallen asleep while watching over Makkachin seems unforgivable.

“Good morning, Yuuri,” Viktor is cheery as he strolls into the room with a plateful of pancakes. “Did you sleep well?”

Yuuri stares at him, disoriented by his acting as though nothing is out of the ordinary. He’s unsettled by the sense that they’re just sweeping the argument under the rug, never to see the light again, but for the moment he will take what he gets.

“I did, thank you,” he smiles up at Viktor and accepts the plate of pancakes. “You’re not going to make me go on my run today?”

“Unless you want to run into all the middle schoolers going home for lunch, then no,” he answers with a wink. Behind him, Makkachin trails into the lounge as well, and Yuuri has never been more glad to see him.

“Come here,” he calls. “Makkachin, here, good boy.”

He rubs the poodle behind his ears, over his brow, scratches his belly. Makkachin noses into the side of his neck and Yuuri feels warm all over. When Viktor’s jacket slips down his torso and Yuuri looks down, he notices it for the first time. It makes him feel odd to be so loved and cherished. He’s not an intentional attention-seeker through passive aggression and amplified self-doubt, of course - he doesn’t advertise his insecurity as a selling point. It’s just surprising, that’s all. And it feels nice.

“Have you eaten?” he asks, affection overt in his voice.

“I have,” Viktor nods. “Your mother makes some mean scrambled eggs. I didn’t know they could taste so good.”

“Right?” Yuuri beams proudly, and stands up. Makkachin follows his palm with his nose, whining, and Yuuri give him a consolatory pat.

“When should we go to practice?”

“I was thinking of taking a day off today, actually.”

Yuuri looks at him curiously. “Why?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of overpractice?” Viktor returns his gaze disapprovingly. “You’ve been practicing just about every day since we returned from the preliminaries, and long before that too. It’s a wonder I didn’t stop you earlier - I certainly should have. Today is a day off, a day for recuperation.”

Yuuri splutters, objecting. “There are only a few weeks left - both of our careers are riding on this. I should take every minute I have to practice; sleep is the true obstruction.”

Viktor hushes him with an uncharacteristic eye roll, but the smile on his lips is teasing. “How come you’re so eager to renounce sleep as soon as I cancel practice, and yet you’re as unwilling to get up early for your runs as a bull being tugged out of his favourite stable?”

Indignant, Yuuri tries to protest, but Viktor cuts him off not unkindly. “I’m expecting something out of this world tomorrow, so make mental preparations today. Consolidate your understanding of your programs, and of what makes a beautiful presentation.”

“Alright.” Yuuri smiles, too. “Does that mean I get to watch you skate?”

“Do you take me for Narcissus?” Viktor steps back in mock hurt, eyes wide. “Is that really the first thing you think of when I say beautiful presentation?”

Yuuri shrugs, the edge of his smile burning wicked and playful. “I was thinking more along the lines of mental preparation. If your old, almost-thirty-year-old bones can’t take my youthful program, I’m going to have to find a replacement coach as soon as possible. Right? I have to make the mental preparations for such a deed.”

“You wound me,” Viktor narrows his eyes. “I’ll show you just what it means to have beautiful presentation, Katsuki Yuuri, just you wait.”

“For your hair to grey?”

Yuuri laughs as he dodges Viktor’s jab, leaping away from him. “Losing your edge, Mr. Twenty-seven.”

“Insolent,” Viktor says viciously, eyes glittering with a smile. He lunges after him, and Yuuri is thrilled. “Wait until you get a taste of what I do to insolent brats who insult their elders.”

They chase each other out of the house, still laughing. And this is how Yuuri knows they’re okay.

 

-

 

Viktor is beautiful; that’s a fact. It’s not something that Yuuri should still be surprised at, after all this time, but he is - kind of.

On the ice, Viktor turns and turns. His hair sweeps into his eyes as he sits back in his crossovers, the touch of his fingers light as gossamer against the air swelling inside the rink. He’s seductive and gorgeous, sure with his movements, quick and nimble in his step sequence as Eros soars in its melody, impossibly daring as his eye catches Yuuri’s and draws him in. It’s truly impossible to take his eyes off of Viktor, a man who owns the ice as surely as he has snagged Yuuri’s heart.

What is more impressive, though, is still his elegance. His blades speak to the ice; the spray of fine chalkdust and the perfect curve of his trace weave stories into the mesh of cold, brittle white. The alacrity of his feet is mesmeric, violet and indigo sifting jacaranda petals and shaking them into half-formed wishes as he twists, leaps, lands.

He’s sharing his soul with an impermanent audience, baring the sunbleached bones of secrets that have been hiding in broad daylight but which only take on an importance now, when he’s dancing this program to Yuuri. Promising him things. Whispering secrets in the scrape of his blades that he wouldn’t share between his lips, that wouldn’t make it past the gridwork of his teeth.

Then, as his chest heaves with breaths, he stretches out a hand and Yuuri takes it. They improvise a partner routine, full of messily-coordinated lifts and shaky jumps, but they’re both grinning.

 _Come_ , Viktor reaches out for him. _I trust you_ , Yuuri takes his hand.

On the ice, Viktor turns and turns. On the ice, Yuuri turns with him. At last they’re equals, two orbits coinciding and turning in tandem like they’ve never parted ways at all. Even if this is all that Yuuri ever gets to have with him, he thinks it’s really not so bad.

Dancers give away their hearts all the time - neatly-packaged hopes and dreams thrust into their outstretched fingers, gifts that no one ever takes because they mistake it for choreography. Everyone has to leave their heart somewhere, and at least if Yuuri leaves his on the ice, he knows that their moments will be frozen in time forever. Replayed over and over again, their little stretch of infinity where most have only human mortality. The ice is theirs.

 

-

 

When they’re unlacing their boots, later, Yuuri brings it up again. He doesn’t want to live between the prison bars of uncertainty, treading carefully, so he tugs their dark secrets from under the carpet and splays it out in front of the two of them with shaking fingers.

“I’m sorry about what I said to you, yesterday,” he says.

Viktor pauses, takes a long breath, and resumes, tugging apart the knot of his laces with more care.

“I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have,” Yuuri continues, swallowing nervously. “I...didn’t have a right to say them to you. It’s not your fault that you’re good at what you do, and it was wrong of me to say that you had gotten where you are now through pure talent alone.”

He knows it well enough, albeit through the smudged glass of _Exhibit A_. Fingerprints pressed into the reflection of someone staring back at him with eyes full of resignation, full of half-emptied beer bottles and shoe soles soaked in crushed dreams. He should know better. No one gets anywhere with talent adventuring on its own. “You - you must have worked so, so hard. I had no right to say that to you. I’m sorry.”

He waits for a moment, but Viktor stays silent. Hurt pierces Yuuri slowly, drains into his skin and poisons him with an indolent diffidence as though waiting for his hand to bat it away. Vindictive, even, knowing that he is too weak to do so. Chewing his lip, he shakes it off and turns back to his own boots. The ice is melting off of his blade and forming puddles on the linoleum, and he watches it sadly.

Viktor clears his throat. Yuuri turns to look at him, afraid of what is coming.

“I’m sorry, too,” he says quietly.

Then he stops, and Yuuri thinks that’s all he’s going to say - and, don’t get him wrong, that’s enough. He knows what he’s trying to apologise for, and he didn’t bring this up to hear Viktor’s apology. The guilt weighing him down was too heavy, and he had to clear his own conscience.

But, Viktor continues. “I’m sure you realise this: I’m not very perceptive. I don’t know how to read people. I am...very straightforward, and forceful. I impose myself on other people a lot. I want to apologise for ever making you feel uncomfortable -”

Yuuri makes to interrupt, shaking his head, but Viktor holds up a hand. “You’re too kind, Yuuri. You let other people walk over you. I know it was wrong of me to just push my way into your life and become your coach without consulting you before, putting all of that pressure on you.”

He laughs, and lets his laces drop. Yuuri’s heart clenches; this isn’t what he wanted. He doesn’t want to see Viktor sad, because it’s like watching it rain from the sun. Which would be toxic, scientifically, but also incredibly painful to watch the brightest star in their galaxy wilt from its own sadness.

Viktor, with a back hunched over his bony knees like a charred candlewick, looks ten years older than he is. His cheeks are hollow and his fingers knobbly, petal veins tugging over the tendons in his hand like a map: twisting roads turning one way and then the other just to conceal the fact that they’re each the same, returning to the same point from which they originated.

“I know it’s a lot of pressure. People are scared to say no to me, because I’m so famous. So they do whatever I want them to do - and I’ve been spoiled and self-important as a child, anyway, so I didn’t realise how I was manipulating them at first. But -” he takes a breath, and Yuuri reaches out hesitantly to rest his palm against Viktor’s shoulder. Would that he could take the shadows from his shoulders and braid them into wings, braid them into sunlight.

“But it felt so empty, over time, to be worshipped like that. I know that I make mistakes, that I’m imperfect, but everyone seemed so hellbent on discrediting my humanity. It just, it doesn’t feel good. It’s exhausting.”

The afternoon public skating session has ended, and people are exiting the main rink in huge masses. Their chatter swells, and the noise is grating; Yuuri tugs at his boots, and then at Viktors, prompting him to pack away his things.

“Let’s go to the park,” he offers.

“Yeah,” Viktor agrees.

 

-

 

There’s a park not too far from the ice rink, something small and mostly evergreen. They sit side by side on the swings, like they did in Tokyo, but the silence between them is heavy and impenetrable. Yuuri feels so powerless.

It’s cold today - a precursor to early autumn, perhaps. They’re both cooling down after skating, so Yuuri is thankful that they have spare fleeces in their bags just in case. Important not to catch a cold, after all.

The sky is awful and overcast, and the playground is entirely deserted. The local elementary school has long finished by now so it’s just the two of them, watching what would be a setting sun slowly inching its way down the arch of the sky, only there’s nothing to witness when everything is obscured by grey rainclouds.

“I didn’t have many friends as a kid,” Viktor says suddenly. “They didn’t want to play with me. Said I looked like a girl, or was too smart, or - I don’t know. So I learned to be a flirt, just to be fun to be around.”

“Did it work?” Yuuri asks softly.

“Yeah,” Viktor shrugs. “Yeah, it worked. You know - everyone loves me. They see my outgoing personality, and they instantly think I’m some kind of a god. A skating god. Everyone wants to put me in flower crowns, wants me to do this or do that with my hair, exploiting my charms. I liked it at first, because,” he lifts his head to look at the sky. “Because it meant I was finally noticed, finally popular. But it’s such a hollow kind of attention.”

He looks at Yuuri now, smiling strangely, an odd twist to his lips. “That’s what I thought of you, too, at first. A starstruck fan, afraid to let me in and seeing only the perfect side of me that I’ve - that I’ve polished, for years, endlessly. I treated your attention like a game.”

Yuuri grins at this. He’s not really offended, because it’s true - that’s what Viktor was at the start. A pretty idol, so far out of his league it was almost comedic to find him in out-of-the-way Hasetsu introducing himself as his new coach. “For the record, I was sure I was dreaming for two whole months,” he confesses.

Viktor laughs at this, the discomfort in his smile straightening out. He looks like stars, like constellations drawn between each of his features; an archangel of a man, brilliant and bright, technicolour fading along the edges of his pale skin.  

Yuuri realises now that even he is not perfect. His nose is a little hooked at the end, a little crooked. His left brow is marginally higher than his right. His smile indents on the right more deeply than it does on the other side, and his top lip is a little thin.

Yet, it’s all of these imperfections that make him fall so painfully in love with Viktor Nikiforov - as a person, at last, and not as an idea.

He’s not sure, in the end, when he stopped looking at Viktor like a shrine to worship and started staring like he was a fountain for the parched of throat, a cornucopia for the starving, a temple of inspiration and a symbol of human fallibility. Like something he can’t look away from. Like he can never have enough. Yuuri wants to touch him, just to make sure he’s real - just to make sure he’s really fallen for the man and not an illusion. Cautiously, involuntarily, he reaches out and brushes Viktor’s bangs from his brow.

Viktor smiles, then, and Yuuri startles. He pulls his hand back as though stung, but Viktor is looking at him with summer in his eyes, spring alighting over the seam of his lips. Yuuri wants to kiss him, but - no. No, “keep going,” he prompts, embarrassed.

“So I treated your attention like a game, right? How much I could fluster you without doing anything explicitly obvious, how much I could strain your idolatry. It worked, in the end, but not through any efforts of my own - it was time, essentially, that sanded away the glitter in my joints. Am I correct?”

“As if you ever had any glitter in your joints in the first place,” Yuuri teases him.

“See?” Viktor’s smile widens. “You’re so rude, now. Should have seen the docile little kitten you were before, blushing at everything I said and did.”

“As if!” Yuuri swats away Viktor’s hand, blushing. “I never did that. I’m not - some blushing shoujo schoolgirl, alright?”

“I’m not saying you are one,” Viktor says, seriously. “I thought it was cute. Ah, but I’m sure you don’t want me to talk about that anymore. What was I saying?”

“You didn’t want to be worshipped like a deity,” Yuuri whispers.

“Oh, yeah.” Viktor sighs, sits back in his swing and kicks at the dirt absently. “It was exhausting to have to maintain a charade I didn’t even choose to begin. I was always either the outcast or the idol. It wasn’t fun to be on either extreme ends of that social spectrum, because it meant I was always alone. I don’t like to be alone, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Human contact is important to me.”

“You’re like an oversized cat,” Yuuri shakes his head in mock exasperation. “You leave your stupid cat hairs all over the place, hugging people like pillows and pillows like people.”

“I’m going to ignore that insulting comment,” Viktor says haughtily, daintily. Yuuri laughs.

“Anyway, so, I didn’t - I didn’t really -” he stops, frustrated. “I didn’t - think - I didn’t think to -”

“You didn’t think to?” Yuuri is gentle as he leans forward, catches Viktor’s gaze.

“I didn’t think to consider your - your feelings about it,” Viktor bites out with some difficulty. He looks ashamed and embarrassed; it’s sweet and unprecedentedly endearing.

“About?”

“About becoming your coach.” He sighs, and plays with the hem of his jacket. “I just do my own kind of thing, and even though I knew that it annoyed Yakov a lot, I’d been so privileged all my life - as you were so gentle in pointing out,” he adds wryly. Yuuri flushes.

“I’m sorry -” he begins, but Viktor cuts him off.

“No, no, I’m glad you did. You were right, you know. Yakov was always berating me for being so selfish, but I never took it to heart. Perhaps because, on some level, we were never really equals - I was always just a student under his tutelage, and my immature and childish feelings were inferior to the necessity of achieving success. I mean, I don’t begrudge him that, but it was probably one of the reasons why he could never keep me in check.”

Yuuri is silent, deep in thought. Viktor pushes his shoulder slightly and he starts, surprised. “You, on the other hand,” Viktor says quietly. “You treat me like an equal, even though I was your idol. You laugh at my expense and correct my mistakes, and I do the same to you - you can’t even begin to imagine how much I treasure that connection. So...when you said all of that to me, yesterday, it hurt more than criticism had done so before.”

He sees the expression on Yuuri’s face and hurries to backtrack, “it’s not something you need to apologise for! I needed that wake up call, and I’m glad it came from you. You’re the only one I really listen to aside from my parents.”

Yuuri laughs weakly at this, and Viktor chuckles along with him awkwardly. It’s funny, but not for the right reasons. All of these conflicted compliments are making Yuuri feel strange and twisted inside, unable to really make sense of what Viktor is trying to say. Maybe there is no underlying meaning at all, maybe the slapdash way that Viktor apologises is really a string of non sequiturs pressed into place on a jigsaw, and the only missing piece that Yuuri holds in his fist will let it all make sense.

Maybe he understands, and maybe he doesn’t.

As the silence drags on, he stands up first. “I’ll get some ice-cream,” Yuuri suggests, too quickly for it to be natural.

“It’s so cold today, though? It’s almost as cold as winter?”

“Don’t exaggerate,” Yuuri rolls his eyes. “It snows in Russia during winter, I know that for a fact. It snows here, too. It’s nowhere near that cold. Anyway, I’ve heard that ice-cream in summer is actually not the best choice - the sudden temperature change between hot and cold is disruptive for your health.”

“Really?” Viktor looks surprised. “Alright, then. I’ll give you some money -”

“I have money,” Yuuri hedges. “If I keep this up, maybe we can clear the debt for your coaching fee, right?”

Viktor cracks a smile at this. “Alright,” he concedes softly. “Get me something in strawberry.”

Yuuri rolls his eyes again. “I _know_ that,” he sighs. “You love strawberries. Of course I’ll get you strawberry flavours.”

“How did you know I liked it?” Viktor seems genuinely astonished, pausing mid-motion as he moves to put his wallet back into his bag. “I’m sure I’ve never told you about that.”

“You always bring me the strawberries first after you’ve washed them,” Yuuri says like it’s obvious. It’s a touching deed, but he can read people well.

“You always feel bad about indulging in things you like, so you share your favourite things with other people first. You know - you let other people step onto the ice first, you wait for me to test the onsen water, you click your chopsticks together to urge me to eat first. By the way, that’s a bad habit; it’s rude to do that with your chopsticks.”

“Sorry,” Viktor says, looking blank and dazed. The wind cuts past his face, chisels briefly at the plane of his jaw and his eyes stare back at Yuuri a million times deeper than they are. Nerves and rods and cones and increments of human anatomy, at once reduced and enlarged to fit a soul spanning the seven seas. _What did you expect_ , the silence admonishes. _The universe isn’t so kind to let you off without falling once, very hard._

“And, uh, thank you. I...didn’t realise I was even doing it.” Viktor lifts a hand to the back of his neck, unexpectedly bashful.

Yuuri gives him a lopsided smile, walking backwards towards the convenience store across the road. “You’re so bad at reading others that you’re even worse at reading yourself, sometimes,” he calls. “It’s cute, though.”

He turns around before he can see Viktor blush.

 

-

 

A week before the preliminaries, they’ve intensified Yuuri’s training regime to include four hours at Minako’s ballet studio, practicing choreographed elegance to straighten out the little quirks that Yuuri’s natural affinity for dance has resulted in over time.

Viktor watches from the floor, sitting through the four hours without complaint as Minako points out an odd hand movement, a misstep, a centimetre more to the turn of his foot in order to look comfortable. “The judges won’t notice, and I’ll mess it up when I’m buoyed up on adrenaline anyway,” Yuuri bemoans his teacher’s pedantic instruction.

“You get nervous when you don’t have strict guidelines to run through your mind,” Minako tells him with a sigh. “I’m sure you’ll thank me on the day, when your mind is in turmoil and my voice suddenly resurfaces, reminding you to straighten your back leg a little more.”

Silent, Viktor looks at Yuuri, and digests the information. It’s almost unnerving, the way that Yuuri is being watched. However, it is still flattering even though the humiliation is exacerbated tenfold in front of a prestigious audience, so Yuuri takes it.

In the breaks, Viktor hands him his bottle of water and Yuuri takes it gratefully. “It’s odd,” he remarks once.

“What is?” Viktor takes the bottle back and screws the lid on.

“That dancing - skating, ballet - can be so tiring.” Yuuri bends over to touch his toes, arching his back with a sigh of relief. He doesn’t want to cramp up now; they still have an hour and a half of this left to go.

Viktor hums, “I don’t think it’s odd.”

“You don’t?”

“Well, if you think about it,” he leans over to copy Yuuri, smiling at him through his fringe. “You’re working your whole body. There’s so much concentration involved: keep your leg straight, toes pointed, shoulders square, chin up and fingers poised. There is no breath of reprieve. Everything is a performance, an ocean of eyes and cameras trained on you to catch even the slightest slip.”

“I guess you’re right,” Yuuri says thoughtfully, before straightening to return to practice.

The strains of their conversation linger in his mind for the rest of the session. Yuuri thinks about it as he pirouettes, falls gently into a _grand plié_  and turns to make an _arabesque_ , stopped by Minako who lifts his forearm and taps the heel of his outstretched foot to remind him to point his toe.

It does take all of his concentration to dance, and more than that, Yuuri grows more aware of the way the music coincides with his movement. When there’s downbeat in the music, he accents the drop in his shoulders, twists more naturally as the melody plateaus and then stretches upward again. Instantly, he can feel a difference. He sees it in Viktor’s face, too, satisfaction tilting the pleased curve of his lips.

“Good work,” Minako pats him on the back. She genuinely means it, he can tell - on days that he’s not doing so well, she picks up on his mood and gentles her criticism into constructive praise. Today, though, there is pride glinting in her eyes.

“You really did do well,” Viktor says as they walk back to the hot springs.

“Thanks,” Yuuri ducks his head. “Hey, I have a question.”

“Ask away.”

“Why…” he trails off, unsure as to how to phrase the question. “Why did you choose ice-skating over any - literally any - sport? Aside from, well, being good at it?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t ask that earlier,” Viktor says.

Yuuri stops, questioning. “Why do you say that?”

“I wanted to ask the same of you,” Viktor admits. “I wanted to know why you started skating.”

He turns his gaze on Yuuri, a calculated glance splicing the sincerity of his question. “I know that the Nishigori family has been very supportive in giving you the facilities you need for it, and you’ve had a lot of spare time to spend skating, but why did you get into it?”

A beat, and Yuuri closes his eyes.

In the beginning, it was him, and the silence with which he made cautious friends. Fragmented by distant sound and the hum of traffic, he looked for things to mend the fissure lines.

_“Play with your friends more, Yuuri.”_

_“Don’t spend every day holed up in your room.”_

It’s a hazy recollection, sun-drenched childhood parsed through the magnifying glass of introspection. Even then, there’s not much to tell.

Years ago he watched blades glint silver under the dome lighting, tightened his own laces for the first time, and leapt into the arms of an eternal winter.

The monsters, the angels, they reached for his hands and his feet carried him backwards instead, swift lines and trace and art etched into a spray of ice - a home birthed not from the ashes of a phoenix rising, but the slumber of languid cold gripping his ankles. A threat. A promise. Yuuri is both: black and white and the grey in between, and the ice spoke to that duality within him.

“Because of you,” Yuuri swallows, answering at last. “And because - I’ve always been an ugly duckling around here, gaining weight easily and having trouble making friends. I - I wanted to be a swan, for once.”

“But you already are one, without skating?” Viktor gazes at him, genuinely confused. He says things like this, and it bewilders Yuuri. The lack of malice and an unmistakeable candor within his voice is confusing for most people, caged in a world of deceit and selfish gain. Viktor doesn’t believe in thinking nice things and not saying them, and his direct delivery is disarmingly honest.

“You are very beautiful and graceful, I’m not sure why you thought you had to skate in order to validate it.”

Yuuri hides his flushing face behind his hands, groaning, “flattery! I’m not beautiful; how can you even say that, when you wake up in the morning to a reflection of yourself?”

“Now, that’s flattery,” Viktor shakes his head in amusement. “I do mean it, though. You just don’t see it yourself.”

“Perhaps.” Yuuri heaves a sigh, but he says it more to take Viktor off of the topic than to actually concede a point. He doesn’t believe it for a moment. Yes, it would be nice to - the most beautiful man on earth, telling him he is as beautiful as a swan. Unfortunately, it’s just not true.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he reminds him.

“About why I started skating?” Viktor tilts his head back, hands in pockets. He doesn’t speak for a few minutes, so Yuuri considers the conversation subject dropped. Disappointing, perhaps, that there are still all these things that Viktor doesn’t tell him. Or, maybe he shouldn’t be so harsh on him - it’s not as though Yuuri himself comes clean half the time, either.

He’s thinking this, when Viktor speaks again.

“My mother,” he says, the vowels rounding off clumsily. “She loved to skate, and I loved to watch her.”

“Ah,” Yuuri smiles.

“And -” after a pause, Viktor purses his lips, inverts his half-smile. “Do you remember when I said I confessed to someone face-to-face, and was rejected?”

Yuuri lifts his head, startled. “Yeah?”

“Well, there was this boy in my ballet class.”

A boy?

Staying silent, Yuuri stares at the ground as they walk. A dizzying cocktail of hope and self-induced disappointment swirls, reminding him not to jump to any conclusions. No assumptions. Still, traitorous, baseless excitement thrills through his bones, knocks on his heart’s door, asking _are you still there?_

Yes, yes, it’s still there. His hopeless love for Viktor Nikiforov; as if it could ever leave even if he gave it permission to.

“He...was a beautiful dancer. Even then.”

“I know the type,” Yuuri smiles, encouraging him to continue.

“Yeah. I was so young, then, but - but I figured I knew a thing or two about love. I don’t know, it was stupid.”

“It’s not.” Shaking his head furiously, Yuuri squints at the cement between his feet, and then at Viktor. “I’ve had my fair share of stupid crushes, too, but if it’s taught me anything, it’s that everything makes you grow up a little. I’m sure you liked him for - for a reason.”

He manages the last part in a nervous stammer, suddenly afraid that he’s being too presumptuous. Viktor hadn’t even mentioned anything about liking boys; Yuuri is getting carried away.

Still, it makes Viktor huff a quiet laugh. “You’re right. Okay, then. I had a really big crush on the kid, some shortie with dark hair and a knockout smile. Before I knew it, we were in middle school and he’d just gotten into ice-skating. Naturally, I joined the class.”

“That’s cute,” Yuuri laughs before he can stop himself. “You sound like you were really besotted with him.”

“I was! He wasn’t even a nice person. I have no idea why I liked him.”

Viktor sighs, leaning forward into his steps. Instinctively, Yuuri matches him for each, his shorter strides slipping easily into the languid gait of Viktor’s longer legs.

“Basically, I just - worked up the courage, confessed to him right before high school, and he rejected me. He wasn’t a prick about it, thankfully, just...said that he didn’t like boys.”

Yuuri bobs his head in understanding, and tries to pretend that he’s not as affected by the new information as he really is. That he isn’t terrified and hopeful at the same time about the possibilities. In any case, he should be supportive right now - not thinking about personal gain.

When he looks up, Viktor is smiling at him crookedly. It makes his stomach flip over. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out, for want of something better to say.

“Don’t be,” he answers. “I’m glad I told you.”

 

-

 

After the obligatory hot springs soak, they’re making their way to the dining room when -

“Surprise!”

There’s Yuuri’s mother, father, sister, Minako, even Yuuko and her family, crowded around the small table; it’s laden with an absolute feast just short of featuring katsudon itself. Yuuri gets a lump in his throat by looking at it.

“What’s this?” Viktor moves forward first, grinning widely.

“There’s a saying that if you eat well the week before an important competition, your good luck will be amplified,” his mother winks. “Come, sit down! Everything is still hot, let’s eat.”

Yuuri is pushed and pulled one way and then another before being seated at the centre of one side, with Viktor directly opposite and Yuuko on his right. The triplets are bickering, but Yuuri’s father eventually convinces them to quiet down and Takeshi lumps them together on his left side. His parents sit on opposite ends, Mari squeezed just in between, and Minako beside her. It’s - well. It’s a picture of family unity, and Yuuri has never felt luckier to have these people in his life.

“To Yuuri,” they cheer boisterously, lifting their glasses for a toast.

Under the dining room light, the water swills, splashing over rims and glittering against the reflection of eight hands, three small ones yearning to reach the apex. It’s knuckles clashing and smiles shared around, skin and bones and hearts drawn together in one tight fist as Yuuri reaches out to hold it, treasure it. He swears he doesn’t cry, but perhaps he does. Just a little.

The food is incredible; it should go without saying. There are fish, mussels, steamed sweet potato and whole heaps of potato mash. Beside those are the vegetable platters, glowing with oil residue, and lamb skewers, chicken soup, whole slabs of pork; Yuuri could drink in just the sight itself and be full for days.

“Anyone want ramen?” his mother calls as she carries in a huge pot from the kitchen. Everyone choruses a resounding yes, even though they’re all stuffed to the brim with food.

On the other side of the table, Viktor grins as Yuuri catches him sneaking a sliver of lamb meat to Makkachin, curled up on the ground at his feet.

Yuuri isn’t sure just when it happens, but the triplets fall over themselves midway through the ramen course, fast asleep, and then his father brings out the sake.

“It’s celebratory sake,” he insists, even as Mari pushes it away, citing Yuuri’s need to keep in good health to maximise training time. “Come on, everyone. Help yourselves!”

One cup turns into two, three; his mother drifts off by the fourth round of drinks, just in time to catch the beginning of drunk banter.

“Yuuri was so pudgy and cute as a kid,” his father is saying, raising a glass to the light and toasting nothing in particular. “We would feed him katsudon just to pinch his cheeks.”

“ _Dad_ ,” Yuuri moans, face flushing redder than it already was in intoxication. “That’s so embarrassing, please _stop_.”

Minako laughs at this, reaches over and plucks the sake bottle from Yuuri’s father’s grasp to pour herself another cup. She has the highest alcohol tolerance out of all of them after her extensive drinking experience, but even she is getting tipsy.

“When he walked into my ballet class for the first time,” she laughs in delight at the memory, I thought - wow, they’re selling them in all shapes and sizes now, a beach ball in human form.”

Everyone cracks up, guffawing, and Yuuri hides his face in embarrassment. “Oh my god,” he mumbles, words slurring. “I can’t believe this.”

“You love it,” Viktor says quietly, across the table, just to Yuuri so no one else hears. His eyes are glittering and his cheeks are red, but he doesn’t look particularly inebriated. Either he is an unprecedented heavyweight, Yuuri thinks, or he’s just not drinking enough. Whichever it is, he’s still unfairly pretty.

“I know.” Viktor winks, and Yuuri startles in his seat.

“Did I say that aloud?”

“You did,” he chuckles.

Everyone around them coos, and Yuuri sinks down, slumping over the table. “What are you, the peanut gallery?” He tries to give Takeshi the stinkeye, the only one perfectly sober out of the congregation as per his duty as assigned driver, but he’s too busy staring at Yuuko to notice. Typical.

“Anyway,” Yuuko slaps her hands on the table, surprising everyone. She’s been mostly silent so far, but it’s obvious that she becomes significantly more outspoken when drunk, a different kind of fire burning in her gaze as she looks around. “The kids need to get to bed, and Yuuri has training bright and early tomorrow. We’ll take our leave, now.”

All around the table are murmurs of agreement, followed by Yuuko’s chair scraping back and Takeshi following suit. Without too much trouble, they pick up their three children and carry them together out to their car.

“It’s been a wonderful night, give our thanks to Yuuri’s mother,” Takeshi smiles, and Yuuko waves behind him.

“We will,” Mari waves back. Yuuri’s father yells out instructions as they back out of the driveway, and curve smoothly around and onto the road.

“Good night!” he calls after them, as Yuuri ushers him back inside before they can be yelled at by the neighbours.

With a bit of confused negotiation, Yuuri and his sister help his father to the bedroom, and carry their mother behind him. “Thanks, dad,” he says softly as they close the door.

When it’s just the three of them, Yuuri offers to clean up the table. “Don’t bother,” Mari smiles indulgently. “I’m afraid you might just drop all the glasses. Leave it, help out tomorrow if you’re around.”

“Sure,” Yuuri nods gratefully. He’s completely spent, tired after practice and more than ready to sleep on a full stomach. Viktor bids her a cheerful goodnight, rubs Makkachin behind the ears, and then they make their way back to their rooms.

As is another recent obligation, Yuuri calls up the vet and updates him on Makkachin’s condition.

“He sounds fine,” the vet’s voice crackles over the receiver. “I’ll come by in two days, do a final checkup, and then he’ll be in the clear.”

“So,” Yuuri says, hanging up.

He and Viktor are standing at the foot of the stairs, looking back at each other with varying degrees of sobriety. Yuuri isn’t so sleepy anymore, and when Viktor returns his gaze without wavering or flinching, heat curls up pleasantly in his abdomen and he swallows nervously.

“Back to your room?” Viktor offers first. “Unless you want to sleep, of course.”

“Oh, no,” Yuuri waves a hand dismissively. “I’m awake now. Let’s go to my room.”

 _To do what_ , he wants to ask, but he doesn’t.

He’s not sure what he wants the answer to be.

They climb the stairs slowly, Viktor first and then Yuuri, the wood squeaking under their footsteps.

“Did you enjoy that?” Viktor asks.

“What?” Yuuri shakes himself out of his thoughtful stupor, registering the question a beat late. “Yeah, definitely. It was really endearing. No such saying exists, you know.”

“I know,” Viktor looks back at him with an amused smile. “Your mother is really lovely. I like her a lot.”

“She likes you too.” Yuuri pouts, here, continuing “I’m pretty sure she likes you better than she does me.”

They lapse into a gentle kind of quiet as Viktor makes it onto the second floor and they enter Yuuri’s room. He doesn’t even look at the posters on the wall as he sits down at the foot of Yuuri’s bed, having gotten used to the sight after entering so often. Yuuri follows suit, leans his back against the side of his bed and tips his head back with a contented sigh.

Viktor is warm at his side, not a sticky and obtrusive kind. He feels comfortable, safe, so Yuuri leans over and rests his head in the crook of his neck. At this, Viktor slumps down a little to accommodate Yuuri’s smaller frame, and they sit like this for a few minutes, still and - perfect. That’s what it feels like, lulling Yuuri quietly to sleep.

“Hey,” Viktor says, breaking the silence.

Yuuri shifts awake, eyes blinking blearily in the unlit room. Why didn’t they turn the light on? He can’t remember; moonlight shafts into the room and Viktor’s hair glows brighter than ever. When he realises Yuuri is staring, he sits back a little and the pale light slips over his face, shrouding the slope of his cheek in a pearlescent glow.

 _Oh,_ Yuuri thinks. Maybe this is why. Viktor looks beautiful all the time, but especially so now.

Sighing, he burrows his head into Viktor’s chest, barely registering the way that he tenses almost imperceptibly. Of course, Viktor is still so far out of his league. He might like boys, now, but nothing has really changed if Yuuri hasn’t himself.

He’s not too bitter about it, though. He has this man all to himself for the time being, after all, even if it’s just a temporary lease. No one person can keep the world’s hero from his many admirers. Yuuri’s just being selfish.

“What is it?” he mumbles drowsily, inhaling the scent of Viktor’s fabric softener. Well, it’s his mother’s, which makes it the same as his own, but it smells especially nice on Viktor. Slightly lavender, maybe a hint of pine spice. He can’t be sure. It’s definitely more intoxicating than the sake.

“Did you really enjoy it?” Viktor murmurs this into the crown of Yuuri’s head, his lips moving in his hair. Yuuri shivers, tries not to enjoy it too much.

“I did, why do you ask?”

Viktor shrugs slightly, “I just, you don’t like crowds that much, right? And even if it is your family,” here he smiles, “they were pretty loud.”

Warmth blossoms between Yuuri’s ribs, the forest fire doused out and now burning gently and slowly up the membrane of his lungs, the blemished white of his bones. So easy to miss. “I’m touched you remember,” he says slowly, before admitting, “I was a bit overwhelmed. It was fun, though, and the concern and love -”

His voice catches, and Viktor runs a palm soothingly through his hair. Yuuri realises, belatedly, how close they are - he has his head against Viktor’s chest, and Viktor’s lips are in his hair. They’re curled around each other, two commas or question marks failing to breach the true question at hand, warm and together and a little fearful. Maybe Yuuri is projecting. It’s hurting his head to think.

“Don’t laugh,” he whispers. Viktor hums in agreement.

“I’m not...used to being treated like this. I don’t - I don’t mean that my family mistreated me, or something,” he clarifies quickly. “I just didn’t realise, before, how closely they were supporting me. How much their trust meant to me, now that I’m facing something as - as big as the Grand Prix. I’ve never wanted so much to make someone proud.”

He feels Viktor smile against his head. “You’re growing up,” he says teasingly, fondly. Yuuri swats at him, pretending to take offense.

“Thank you,” he tells him quietly. “Thank you for doing this, for being here.”

Viktor kisses his head slowly, as if to emphasise it. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be,” he replies in a low voice.

Instantly, the atmosphere thickens, and Yuuri’s eyes widen. It sounded like something loaded in double meaning, but he can’t be sure. How drunk is Viktor really, anyway? How much does he really mean these things?

Quietly, Viktor shifts his position, lifting the weight of his head from Yuuri’s and pushing him gently upright as well. The moon is reflected in his eyes, two almost-round orbs of silver staring back at him, the faintest smile lifting the corners of his mouth.

“You’re so beautiful, Yuuri,” he says softly, so softly that Yuuri can’t be sure he caught it. Because then Viktor is leaning forward, hands finding Yuuri’s and then loosely clasping around his wrists, tugging him forward. Yuuri’s heartbeat soars, and blood rushes through his ears; Viktor is so close, so close, _too close_ -

He squeezes his eyes shut, and almost - maybe - hears Viktor sigh. Then, Viktor presses a butterfly kiss to his forehead, before pulling back.

Yuuri is - disappointed. There is no other word for it. What was he expecting, anyway? Fireworks and supernovas? How could Viktor ever like him like that, anyway?

He drops his wrists, eyes beginning to burn with tears. Hastily, he looks away, but not before Viktor catches the hurt in his face.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, voice heavy with concern. “Was I - was I too close? Did I do something wrong? Tell me, Yuuri, _please_ , I can’t bear to see you hurt -”

“I just,” Yuuri whispers, something thick caught between his mouth and collarbone, obstructing his throat as he fights down a sob. “I just - this is so stupid,” he shakes his head, tears falling. He should just keep his mouth shut, but the words keep coming, and he’s too drunk and Viktor’s right there and he’s rubbing slow circles into his back, cautious in a way he’s never been before, and all of that just gets to Yuuri.

“I just - thought you were going to kiss me,” he bites out, voice rising with a sob almost immediately after. The embarrassment is too great; Viktor freezes mid-rub, so Yuuri pushes himself upright, swaying a little, before making to leave.

“I’m sorry,” he blubbers tearfully. “It’s so stupid of me, I mean, how could someone like you like - like someone like me? The universe, it’s, it’s not stupid enough to make mistakes like that, I don’t even know why I thought it. I’ll - I’ll -” he gestures vaguely at the door, trying to avoid the bewildered stare of Viktor looking up at him from the floor, “I’ll go sleep in your room, or something. Or not, if that makes you uncomfortable. Sorry. I shouldn’t have - shouldn’t have said anything, I’m so embarrassing, I’ll just go now -”

“Hey,” Viktor stands up in one swift movement and catches his wrist again, fingers cold and harshly tight as if he’s afraid that Yuuri will vanish if he lets go. Then he softens his grip, enough that Yuuri can pull away if he needs to, like a compromise.

Still, Yuuri realises, his first reaction was to hold him tight. Surely that’s worth something, if not exactly what he wants. But what he wanted was impossible in the first place, so why is he being so ungrateful?

“Hey,” Viktor repeats, stepping closer carefully. “Did you -” he runs his free hand through his hair, agitated. “Did you - did you want me to kiss you?”

Now Yuuri is angry, because how dense can he be? It just sounds like Viktor is trying to humiliate him more, rub the impossibility of his desires back in his face and laugh, only that’s not something the Viktor he knows would do.

“ _Yes_ ,” he hisses furiously, “what do you think? The whole skating world is in love with you, Viktor Nikiforov, so how could stupid old me be an exception? Everyone wants you for themselves. It’s just unfortunate that you’re here with me, when I can’t even dream of touching you without hating myself for being so deluded.”

He wipes away an angry tear, and steps out into the hallway. “Let me go, can we just pretend this didn’t happen?”

Viktor doesn’t reply, only tightens his hold on Yuuri’s wrist and steps forward with him. Slowly but firmly, he pushes Yuuri against the open door, palms warm on the dip just under his shoulders. Then, he’s leaning in, the tip of his nose brushing Yuuri’s and his curtain of hair falling into Yuuri’s eyes. So he shuts them, lets himself dream for one more moment.

When Viktor kisses him, he doesn’t believe it. Viktor’s lips are warm, a little dry, and the breath they share is stained with the unmistakeable taste of sake. Almost like he can read his mind, Viktor leans back and kisses him again, the seam of his lips fitting cleanly over Yuuri’s, and this time he can’t deny it. Can’t deny that - Viktor Nikiforov is kissing him, Katsuki Yuuri, right now. And it sure as hell had better not be a dream.

“Okay?” Viktor whispers when he pulls away, eyes glinting as Yuuri searches them for a trace of deceit, pity. There’s none there.

“Okay,” he whispers back.

Viktor’s eyes darken and he pulls him back into his room, pushing the door closed behind them and - wow, that’s unexpected, Yuuri’s mouth goes dry and his heart thuds heavily; he can’t really believe it. Not at all.

“Believe it,” Viktor tells him, and Yuuri can almost make out his smug smile, the cat that got the cream.

“Did I say that aloud?” he whispers back, for the second time, and Viktor laughs. But it’s undoubtedly different, because this time he kisses him again, crushing their lips together a little more harshly and then moving his. Yuuri stumbles, dizzy and absolutely, painfully drunk on the feeling of Viktor’s lips against his, but Viktor catches him - just like he always does, an arm under the arch of his back as he lowers him onto the bed.

Yuuri’s just beginning to think that maybe, things are going a little fast, when Viktor pulls back and smiles at him, leaning just slightly over his prone figure.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

“For what?” Yuuri’s chest is heaving with each breath, which is embarrassing, but it’s made up for by the fact that Viktor is looking at him like - _oh_. Like he always does. Like he’s something special, and this time Yuuri knows for sure, he _is_ special to him. He’s been so blind. It makes him feel terribly warm and giddy inside, and he returns Viktor’s smile.

“For letting me kiss you,” Viktor tilts his head questioningly. “Shouldn’t I say that? I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long, you can’t even begin to imagine. I couldn’t believe it when you said you wanted me to.”

“Are you kidding?” Yuuri raises a brow in incredulity. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since forever, okay. How could I possibly believe that you would want to kiss me, when - when I’m just me?”

“But that’s exactly why I wanted to,” Viktor returns. He crouches down beside Yuuri’s bed, and kisses him lightly on the lips. “I told you before, you don’t know how wonderful you are.”

Yuuri’s cheeks heat up. “Oh, shut up, you.”

“Just telling the truth,” Viktor beams at him. “Now, I’ll let you sleep.”

He tugs Yuuri’s covers up to his chest, and pats him lightly on the head. “If we keep going, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.”

Something hot and feral pools in Yuuri’s stomach, and his toes curl in delight. “Alright,” he murmurs back. “Thank you. For letting me kiss you, I mean. And good night.”

“Good night.” Viktor leans in for another kiss, which Yuuri gladly returns, and then he pads quietly to the door. “Sweet dreams.”

Then, he steps outside, and shuts the door with a quiet click behind him.

 

-

 

The thing is, they don’t bring it up afterwards. Or, rather, Viktor doesn’t talk about it, so Yuuri doesn’t either.

It’s not as though they have much time to anyway - the week before the Cup of China passes in a blur, with Yuuri falling asleep the moment his head hits the pillow with how exhausted he is. Then, before he knows it, they’re flying to China.

The night before his short program, they stumble back to the hotel in pitch darkness with only the clap of their footsteps on pavement to keep them company. Viktor is completely inebriated, in such an incredible state. With some difficulty, Yuuri supports him with his arm, holding them together like mismatched halves of a whole.

“Why did you drink so much?” he whispers into the shadows, not really disapproving but needing to say it aloud just for himself.

“Chinese wine is,” Viktor mumbles, “a whole other thing to sake.”

“You’re such an idiot,” Yuuri hisses back, but it has no bite. “Isn’t there any strong alcohol in Russia?”

Viktor stumbles, “there are. Just. Yakov kept me away from it.”

By some miracle, they manage to get back to their room in one piece. One room, obviously. Even after the _incident_ , Viktor has not changed at all and Yuuri really can’t decide whether he’s more grateful or irritated by this.

He wholly gives up on the idea of a shower. They can take quick ones the next morning.

As he’s pushing Viktor into his bed, tugging the half-finished bottle of white wine out of his grasp and putting it on the bedside table, Viktor speaks again.

“You asked me this a while back.” Yuuri flinches as Viktor’s head lolls onto his leg without warning, the words blurring together between his lips.

“What did I ask you?” he says, as gently as he can.

“What I wanted to eat if you win,” Viktor explains. He reaches for the bottle blindly, but Yuuri pushes it out of his reach. “And I said whatever you wanted to, didn’t I?”

Yuuri nods slowly, carding his fingers through Viktor’s hair to distract him from the idea of drinking. “I didn’t realise you still remembered that,” he remarks.

“I remember everything about you!” Viktor tries to sit upright, bumping into Yuuri’s chin as he does so. He looks truly offended that Yuuri could ever have insinuated that he _wouldn’t_ remember everything about him.

“Well, I don’t in comparison to your incredible observation skills, but I try to. Whenever someone mentions something about you, I memorise it by the letter, to - to my heart.”

Yuuri feels terribly guilty listening to Viktor’s drunk confessions, but he can’t deny that he’s deeply moved by them, these surprising fireflies lighting up the miscommunicated threads of darkness and untried conversation between them.

“Alright, alright.” With a laugh, Yuuri pushes Viktor back down against his shoulder, and prompts him to continue.

“Well,” he mumbles, “I told you I’d tell you why I said that, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Yuuri affirms.

“It’s because you look happy when you eat the things you like.”

Viktor says this so simply that Yuuri is waiting for more until he realises that’s the entire explanation, and his face heats up. “Wait,” he splutters, “you can’t base your happiness on someone else like that -”

“I can,” Viktor interjects, “if it’s you. You don’t treat yourself enough. You don’t look after your own needs and yet you run around trying to help with those of others. You look so happy eating your favourite meals, and the happiness of watching you is greater than any pleasure I can derive from eating good food.”

“Oh,” Yuuri murmurs. He doesn’t know what to do. He wants to kiss him, wants to take him in his arms and tell him about all the ways in which he feels the same, wants to see Viktor’s sunshine smile eclipse the world in its brilliance. But Viktor is drunk, and he doesn’t know where they stand with each other.

He waits another moment, two, and Viktor’s breaths iron out and soften. Gently, although Yuuri doubts he’d be able to wake easily in such a drunken stupor, he lowers Viktor’s head onto the pillow and pulls the blankets up to his chin.

“So stupid,” he whispers at him, smiling fondly. Then he shuts off the light, stumbling to his own bed to set an alarm and then promptly falling asleep.

 

-

 

It’s a niggling thought at the back of Yuuri’s mind, what they are. To each other, and to the world. He reminds himself to trust in Viktor, to trust that he means what he says and he’d never leave him hanging in such an awful way. The way he behaved that first night in China seems to be telling of everything he has yet to vocalise, at least to Yuuri, but it’s so hard to figure him out: Viktor, who embraces old friends and new in much the same way, who tells him he loves him when he skates and hitches the same phrase between his teeth when Yuuri knocks their foreheads together. Even though he doesn’t say a word. It’s frustrating.

However, by the time he gets to his free skate, heart pounding harder than it’s ever done so before with the burden of his family and friends, of the event, of the audience, of his own successes and of Viktor’s trust and pride all stacked over and over again on his shoulders, Yuuri is beginning to doubt himself.

Maybe Viktor wants to leave, after all. Maybe the kiss really was just a drunken accident, a mishap, something he regrets. All the signs pointing to his affection could have swung the wrong way in a strong wind, could have been misinterpreted. And then, maybe the kiss is what’s really making him want to leave, instead of just Yuuri’s incompetency.

Somehow, Viktor then has the audacity to say something so harsh and painful to him - that he’ll _take responsibility and retire as his coach_ , as if he’s testing him, ruling him by his obscure standards.

He’s terrible, Yuuri thinks, even afterwards. Viktor might be a genius at skating, ridiculously good at kissing, a gentleman and a handsome man and a man he’s a little bit in love with, but he’s still incorrigibly stupid.

 _Stupid Viktor_ , he thinks to himself affectionately as he leaps into his quadruple salchow, the third jump in his free program.

The ice envelopes him in the absolution he has always been searching for with fingers that unknowingly yearn, unknowingly grasp to hold onto constancy and continuity. Yuuri skates for himself, first and foremost. For the taste of death that burns hot and ice-cold all at once when he flies across the ice, and also for the home he has built between the pillars of this winter shrine.

He also skates for his family and friends, and now, also for Viktor. Although he may not know what they are, yet, the truth of Viktor’s contribution to the construction of this sanctuary is undeniable, and when Yuuri reaches out to hold tight the same silent friend who has transmuted to light and sound, he is also holding tight to Viktor.

 _Oh,_ he thinks. _I wonder how Viktor would react if I made the last quad a flip instead of a toe loop._

In the quagmire of adrenaline and half-formed thoughts, this one stands out starkly clear. Yuuri drowns under the sensation of flying, ecstatic, and he lifts this idea high up, bright, bold.

_I want to become stronger._

_I can become stronger._

_I can surpass Viktor's wildest imagination._

Some days, when they finished practice, Yuuri would tell Viktor to leave first. His coach refused at first, convinced that Yuuri was going to overexert himself with his standards of perfection, but Yuuri was equally as firm.

In his absence, he skates: around the rink, a merry carousel of gliding steps, bruises blossoming like lavender on his feet but glorious to the touch, his battle scars. Then he’d leap -

Three turn, inside edge, toe pick. Emulating Viktor, _being_ Viktor. He watches videos of his coach’s quadruple flip over and over again, almost as many times as he falls.

At the time, Yuuri didn’t know why he wanted to - only that he did. He needed to know every ingredient, every speck of dust and miniscule atom that made up the fibre of Viktor Nikiforov. In their acquaintanceship it was a meeting of the minds, but Yuuri found the key tucked between the bricks and melded flesh and bone; one man dancing in another’s shadow for long enough that night falls, and there is none but the solitary silhouette tracing his _pas de deux_ with two feet and two souls.

Now, he knows. Not why, but _how._

The noise in his head is pleasantly silenced, everything holding its breath for his takeoff. Turn, scrape, jump -

(he’s spinning, once, twice, thrice, and then _four_ )

\- landing with a stumble to the overwhelming roar of the crowd, camera shutters exploding like a midsummer monsoon clattering on dry cement and commentators fumbling over their seats to cry praise into their microphones. In that sea of motion, of bodies and faces and voices, Yuuri catches Viktor in his eye and smiles.

He breathes; it’s over.

But it’s not, because there's Viktor, eyes hidden behind his beautiful hands and then _there’s_ Viktor, running the circumference of the rink just to get to him. Yuuri meets him halfway, has never kicked off so fast in his life and nearly falls in his desperation to reach him.

Two minds, two bodies, two souls.

When Viktor kisses him on international television for all to see, Yuuri softens under his touch and they’re indivisible, one and the same, hands clasped tight in the smallest alcove of infinity that time lends to them. _Keep it well,_ it cautions, and they do.

Yuuri has never known so much love in life, has never known Viktor Nikiforov quite like this even in his wildest of dreams. He barely registers the impact of two bodies landing on the ice, seeing only Viktor; he maps out the arch and dip of his face and thinks he’s never seen anything as beautiful as this, and probably will never again.

“This was the only thing I could think of to surprise you more than you've surprised me,” Viktor says, just for the two of them to hear.

 _Oh,_ Yuuri’s heart whispers. “Oh,” he echoes. "Really?"

Across the unbridgeable divide they connect, they merge and they join and they slip into each other’s orbit. They're stars, spheres of burning gases until you step back a few hundred light years, look again, and they're just two coordinates in a constellation of their own. They're many things and Yuuri knows, without a doubt, what they are. It’s nothing that words can name.

“I love you,” one of them says, lost in the noise of the crowd. He doesn’t know which of them says it. It doesn’t matter.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> confession: this fic is my child, my most precious endeavour. it came about whilst i was procrastinating working on other things, when i thought - wow. yoi. just wow. yoi is a pretty much unexpected true love for me, all the more dear bc i was definitely a cynic in the beginning.
> 
> ok, to clear a few things up:
> 
> 1\. the makkachin part was planned before ep 8, and i'm really happy that he's well & safe in canon ;-; he really, truly, deserves the best. 
> 
> 2\. almost everything takes place between the preliminaries in japan and the cup of china, as i believe the former took place in september, and the latter in november? pls correct me if i'm wrong!
> 
> alsO ik there are inconsistencies...i realised this partway through writing, noticing that my characterisation diverges from canon. but. i was lazy and too taken by their dynamic already, so i tried to refer back to canon from time to time to improve the situation i found myself in. however, the biggest lesson really is: pls suspend disbelief! >_<
> 
> finally, thank you so much for reading! feedback & constructive criticism is more than welcome! it would make my day :^)
> 
> edit: i didn't expect such a wonderful reception, so i'm unbelievably grateful for you all. i'm sorry i haven't been replying to comments ;;; believe me, i've read them - and read and reread them so many times, because they always make me smile. i do promise, however, that i'll get to them all soon! it's just a selfish wish of mine to reply to each as eloquently as they have been written, because they mean so much to me. thank you again!!


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